The creditor banks of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines have found a buyer for the highly-indebted shipbuilder which stopped operations in Zambales province early this year, according to the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.
SBMA chairman Wilma Eisma said the bank creditors of Hanjin were finalizing the negotiations with “an entity” to take over the Korean shipbuilder.
“The creditor banks are the ones leading the negotiation for Hanjin. As we speak, they are now in what they call an exclusivity discussion with a particular entity already and the hope is that they’ll be able to finish discussion by the end of October and by December what will be the outcome path for the Hanjin to take,” Eisma told reporters during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Subic Freeport Expressway expansion project.
“Right now, the only thing that I can tell you is that there are more than one foreign company that is actually in discussions with the creditor banks and Filipino companies are also very interested,” she said.
Hanjin, the biggest foreign investor in Subic Bay Freeport Zone, filed in January this year a petition with the Regional Trial Court in Olongapo City to initiate voluntary rehabilitation under Republic Act No. 10142, otherwise known as “An Act Providing for the Rehabilitation or Liquidation of Financially Distressed Enterprises and Individuals”.
The company owes some $400 million in outstanding loans to Philippine banks on top of another $900 million to Korean lenders.
Local banks with exposure to Hanjin include BDO Unibank Inc. Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., Land Bank of the Philippines, Bank of the Philippine Islands and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.
HHIC-Phil, which has focused on building high-value vessels, was established in 2006 as a subsidiary of Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. Ltd., a multinational company that provides shipbuilding, construction and plant services.
The company reportedly laid off 7,000 workers in December 2018.
