Only One Bidder for STX France
The South Korean court handling the bankruptcy proceedings of STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co. said that only a single bidder had submitted a binding proposal to buy the shipyard's profitable French unit, says a report by AFP.
STX France, which specialises in building cruise ships, is the only profitable unit of STX Offshore, which filed for receivership in May.
Italian shipbuilding giant Fincantieri SpA, Netherlands-based Damen Shipyards Group and French state-controlled naval shipbuilder DCNS had initially expressed interest in acquiring STX France, which specialises in building cruise ships.
The four were supposed to undertake due diligence of STX’s assets for up to two weeks before offering final takeover proposals. But only one bidder has met the deadline for making a binding offer.
Judge Choi Ung Young, who acts as a spokesman for the court in Seoul, declined to identify who the bidder was, but said the proposal was being studied by Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is handling the proposed sale.
The court said two months ago that buyers would have the choice of purchasing STX Offshore and the French unit separately or as a package.
The sale of STX France is a key part of the restructuring plan by STX—Korea’s fourth largest shipbuilder—which filed for receivership in May and owns two-thirds of the French unit.
Creditors have pumped in billions of dollars to bail out STX Offshore, but it still ran up a 314 billion won (nearly $280 million) operating loss last year, following a 1.5 trillion won loss in 2014. The company owes financial institutions nearly 6 trillion won.