2023-08-03 09:25:04
[딜사이트 최보람 기자] The business world is showing a somewhat suspicious reaction to Hanjin KAL’s decision to sell the Seosomun Building, which is used as the headquarters of Korean Air, to Korean Air. This is because Hanjin KAL, which has room in its barn, does not seem to need to raise hundreds of billions of won in cash right away.
Hanjin KAL announced on the 3rd that it plans to sell the Seosomun office building and part of the land to Korean Air on the 4th. The sale price is 264.2 billion won, and the reason is to secure liquidity.
Regarding this, a Hanjin Group official said, “The Seosomun office building currently owned by Hanjin KAL is historically recognized as a Korean Air building. “We decided to buy it as a preemptive investment,” he said.
The market is showing a reaction that Korean Air bought the Seosomun office building to some extent. Thanks to the alternately good performance of the cargo and passenger businesses from the pandemic period to the present, it has cash assets worth 5.9451 trillion won as of the end of June, and real estate prices in downtown Seoul have also stabilized downward this year.
However, Hanjin KAL’s intention to sell real estate is somewhat unclear. First of all, the company has 176.4 billion won in cash as of the end of March this year, and has a solid financial structure with a debt ratio of only 33.5% at the same time. Looking at the group’s biggest pending issue, the acquisition of Asiana Airlines, the market believes that Hanjin KAL does not need to spend a large amount of money as the subject of the M&A is Korean Air.
In response, some are raising the possibility that the idle funds secured by Hanjin KAL will be used to strengthen the group’s control.
For example, in the case of Hanjin Co., Ltd., a logistics company within the group, Hanjin KAL, the largest shareholder, held only 24.16% of the shares, and thus had a management dispute with Golden Oak Investment (9.79%), the second largest shareholder. In addition, Hanjin Co., Ltd. recently issued a convertible bond (CB) worth 30 billion won due to the high interest rate burden, and Hanjin KAL’s stake may be diluted in the future. CB refers to bonds to which the bond holder has the right to convert them into shares of the issuer (Hanjin Co., Ltd.) according to their will.
On the other hand, when asked by the deal site about the reason for the real estate sale, Hanjin KAL briefly replied, “There is nothing to disclose other than what has been disclosed.”
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