 | | |  | |
      | ||||
 |
|
| |
South Korea's Troubled Hynix Given Another Chance
 12/30/2002 SEOUL (Reuters) - Creditors of South Korea Hynix Semiconductor Inc. agreed on Monday to keep the troubled chipmaker from folding by swapping some debt into equity and rescheduling the remaining loans. About 90 percent of the creditors attending a meeting to review proposals drawn up by advisor Deutsche Bank AG on restructuring Hynix approved the plan, said an official at state-run Korea Exchange Bank, the main creditor bank. The bank declared the plans had been passed about one hour after the meeting began, he said. The move will likely further exasperate U.S. computer-chip maker Micron Technology Inc, which has accused South Korean competitors of receiving government subsidies and has sought trade penalties against them. Micron, the world's second largest memory chipmaker, failed in April to buy core assets of Hynix for $3.4 billion. It lodged a complaint with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission in November and asked for tariffs to be imposed on Korean memory chip imports. DEBT EXCHANGED FOR EQUITY Creditors, who already own more than a 67 percent stake in Hynix through previous bailouts of the world's third-largest maker of computer memory chips, will exchange some 1.9 trillion won ($1.59 billion) in debt into equity and reschedule the remaining three trillion won of maturing debt. These bailout plans would allow Hynix to free up some cash to catch up with its rivals in modernizing production facilities in an industry where production technology standards play a key role in deciding competitiveness. South Korean creditors, who have led the restructuring of the country's indebted companies since the 1997-98 financial crisis, offer debt-to-equity swaps to cut debt while rebuilding the capital base for indebted but commercially viable companies. However, creditors also approved a plan to combine every 21 shares in Hynix into one, another method widely used in South Korea before fresh capital is injected into a troubled company. This is aimed at preventing a company's share capital from being artificially expanded through a debt-to-equity swap. News Archive | |
| | |||||||||||||||
|
Home | About Us | Solutions | Customers | Account | Contact Us | Korean Links
Return Policy | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions
| ||||||||||||||||||||
You have 
