A consortium led by Harim Group was picked Monday as the preferred bidder for South Korea's top container shipper HMM Co., official sources said.
Last month, two state agencies -- the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) and the Korean Ocean Business Corp. -- conducted a final bidding for their controlling stake in HMM, drawing the Harim-JKL Partners consortium and Dongwon Group.
The Harim-led consortium reportedly offered to pay some 6.4 trillion won (US$4.92 billion) for the 398.8 million shares up for sale, which KDB and the corporation acquired seven years earlier in a debt-for-equity swap.
Harim Group owns Harim Co., the country's largest poultry-processing company, and JKL Partners is a major private equity fund.
The two state agencies had planned to announce the prime bidder by early December, but it has been delayed due to the Harim consortium's several conditions for a takeover.
One of the conditions is its demand that the sellers delay their conversion of perpetual bonds into equity for three years after the purchase, according to watchers.
Source: Yonhap News Agency