A file photo on former Hanjin Shipping head Choi Eun-yeong. [Yonhap News Photo]
Prosecutors have sought a warrant to arrest the former head of South Korea's largest container carrier Hanjin Shipping on charges of using insider information to sell stocks before the troubled company was put under a creditor-led rehabilitation scheme.
At the request of financial regulators, prosecutors have investigated Eusu Holdings chairwoman Choi Eun-yeong and her two daughters who had sold their holdings in Hanjin Shipping illegally to avoid losses.
In March, Hanjin Shipping, a subsidiary of the Hanjin Group controlled by Cho Yang-ho who also heads South Korea's top carrier Korean Air was put under creditor-led restructuring to roll over its maturing debt after Cho stepped down as chief organizer of the 2018 winter Olympics in the eastern ski resort of Pyeongchang.
Cho's younger brother had run the shipping company until he died in 2006 and then his wife managed it. In 2014, Korean Air acquired a controlling 33.2 percent stake in Hanjin Shipping. Choi has headed Eusu Holdings since it was separated from Hanjin Group in May 2015.
Hanjin Shipping, one of the world's top ten container carriers in terms of capacity, has been reeling under a credit crunch aggravated by snowballing debts and falling freight rates. To receive a new bailout from creditors, the company is under pressure to step up the sale of non-core assets, lower chartered ship fees and extend the maturity of loans held by non-banking institutions.
Cho has offered to abandon managerial control of the shipping unit as he was tied up with his work to reform Korean Air and other group units.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
