Daedong Shipbuilding out of legal management

Daedong Shipbuilding may get out of court receivership earlier than originally scheduled.
The Korea Development Bank announced in the afternoon of December 28 that the Seoul Regional Court ordered the end of Daedong Shipbuilding’s liquidation procedures.

Therefore, Daedong Shipbuilding will return to being a normal enterprise 10 years earlier than scheduled, 2012.

The KDB completely underwrote 100 billion won of Daedong Shipbuilding bonds issued December 21 in order to support the early termination of the court receivership. Daedong Shipbuilding paid back all its existing debts with the funds.

Daedong is a mid-sized dockyard that builds about 20 vessels between 30,000 and 80,000 tons on a yearly basis. It entered court receivership in January 1997 due to a lack of liquidity when it failed to pay back outstanding debts in order to expand dockyards. STX, formerly Ssangyong Heavy Industries, took over Daedong in September 2000 by purchasing 98% of STX shares.

Daedong will change its name to 'STX　shipbuilding' starting from 2002. The corporate logo is also going to change to be the same as its largest shareholder, STX.

Daedong is expected to bring in 470 billion won in sales, increasing 40% over last year, and to raise 44 billion won of ordinary profit. Currently, it has built 16 vessels worth of 530 billion won.