[Aju News DB]
South Korea's troubled shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries, is weighing options to improve its financial status including the initial public offering of its oil refinery unit Hyundai Oilbank.
In a regulatory filing, the world’s biggest shipbuilder said it was not considering selling Hyundai Oilbank but may list it if market conditions improve.
A company official said nothing had been decided about the IPO of the oil refinery whose market value is estimated to be as much as six trillion won (4.91 billion US dollars) to 7 trillion won if listed.
Hyundai Heavy hold a more than 90 percent stake in Hyundai Oilbank, which is the most profitable among four South Korean refineries.
Hyundai Heavy suffered a record operating loss in 2014 of about $3 billion as cost overruns mounted in number of new projects at its offshore engineering division.
Despite rigorous restructuring and cost-cutting efforts, the company posted an operating loss of about $ 1.3 billion last year mainly due to unexpected huge losses stemming from delivery cancellation of semi-submergible rigs.
Alex Lee
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
