SK Global’s Creditors request more support measure from SK Group

SK Global Creditor Banks Request New Support Measures

Creditors of SK Global requested new support measures, saying “SK’s subsidiaries have to make new investment in SK Global.”

Creditor banks decided to consider court management or liquidation if SK Global’s second self-saving plan, which should be submitted April 15, does not include special measures including more supports from SK Group’s major subsidiaries.

SK Global’s Creditors said today that it recently requested SK Group to include new investment from SK Corp and SK Telecom into the second self-saving plan. Creditors also insisted that more support measures are needed including SK Corp.’s purchase of SK Global’s oil stations at the market prices, SK Telecom’s purchase of treasury stocks of SK Global, and SK Telecom’s purchase of Durunet’s dedicated line network at the reasonable prices.

A official of creditor banks said anonymously, “SK Global can not survive unless SK Group provide decisive measures to keep it afloat. In this case, we will inevitably consider extreme measures such as court management or bankruptcy.” Another official said, “It depends on the results of the actual review of the company, but there are expected to be huge loans in the overseas sectors. We are preparing for court management of the company.”

Some creditor institutions expect the company’s addition loans will be as much as 1.5 – 2.5 trillion won and the entire loans will be more than 4 trillion won.

However SK Group has some difficulties in taking support measures due to the requests from People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and minority shareholders not to support SK Global.

Foreign creditors including SCB were known to mainly ask about SK Groups support measures including SK Corp. at the negotiation with SK Global held in Tokyo on April 8.

At this negotiation, some foreign creditor banks were known to refuse 3-month extension of the loans requested by domestic creditors on the grounds that SK Global is not likely to survive.

Chi-Young Shin Mi-Kyung Jung higgledy@donga.com mickey@donga.com