S.Korea KAMCO to revisit Daewoo shipyard sale in H2

Korea Asset Management Corp (KAMCO), a state debt clearer, said on Tuesday it would consider the best time later this year to sell a stake in Daewoo Shipbuilding and an energy developer. The planned sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, estimated to have fetched $5 billion, fell through in January due to a dispute over financing terms with South Korea's Hanwha Group.
Hanwha had been picked as the buyer of a 50.4 percent stake in the world's No.3 shipbuilder, which was owned by state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) and KAMCO.
'In consultations with KDB, we will review the timing of the sale in the second half of 2009,' the debt agency said in a policy report to parliament.
KAMCO will also mull the timing to put its 35.5 percent of Daewoo International Corp, a energy developing firm, later this year, together with other creditor banks.
The stake is worth 923.4 billion won ($696 million) by Tuesady's closing.
Previous efforts by the state agency and other banks to sell equity holdings in three companies -- Daewoo shipyard, unlisted Daewoo Electronics and Ssangyong Engineering & Construction -- all collapsed due to pricing differences as the global credit crisis took a heavy toll on potential buyers.
Separately, KAMCO will seek to offer 9.9 percent of unlisted Kyobo Life Insurance, one of South Korea's top three life insurers, in the second half, taking into consideration progress in Kyobo's planned IPO.