Chairman Chung Mong-Koo might help HEC

The self-relief plan of Hyundai Engineering & Construction (HEC) is expected to be finalized soon after a struggle among members of the Chung family.

Lee Keun-Young, chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission, met with Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-Koo and sought the sale of former Hyundai honorary chairman Chung Ju-Yung's 2.69% stake in Hyundai Motor, acquisition of Autonet and takeover of HEC's steel structure business unit by Inchon Iron & Steel, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor.

Chung promised that he would cooperate with the requests of the FSC. Prior to this, Lee also had talks with Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) adviser Chung Mong-Joon seeing that HHI could buy HEC's promise and cooperate in selling HHI's ownership in Hyundai Electronics Industries (HEI). And Chung has shown a positive response to the request.

So Hyundai's self-relief plan, which calls for raising nearly 1 trillion won of cash, is likely to be officially announced Nov. 16 at the earliest.

Kim Jae-Soo, head of Hyundai's restructuring team, said that the group would separate HEI from the conglomerate as soon as possible, while studying ways to sell Hyundai Corp. to HHI or Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Autonet to Hyundai Motor.

Kim also noted that Hyundai Asan chairman Chung Mong-Hun would hold a meeting with chairman Chung Mong-Koo of Hyundai Motor and Chung Mong-Joon, adviser of HHI, to discuss these matters to finalize the self-relief package. Kim said the group would spin off HEI before 2002 and reduce the ownership in HEI of chairman Chung Mong-Hun, Hyundai Merchant Marine and HHI to less than 3% from the current 16.3%.

Lee Byung-Ki eye@donga.com