South Korea

Policy makers in Seoul are accelerating efforts to restructure debt-laden and unprofitable companies before an anticipated rise in U.S. interest rates and any further slowdown in China reverberates in South Korea, Bloomberg News reported. Falling exports and huge losses among some of Korea’s corporate giants have injected urgency into efforts to sell poorly performing assets and raise competitiveness. Overseas shipments have dropped every month this year, with notable weakness in sales to China.

The government has been preparing to preemptively restructure insolvent companies ahead of the anticipated interest rate hike by the U.S. central bank, and a new study showed that nearly 6 percent of Korean companies could need it, Korea JoongAng Daily reported. According to a report by private corporate analysis agency Korea CXO Institute, 117 of Korea’s 2,000 companies, excluding financial firms, have debt-to-asset ratios of over 200 percent and are also suffering from operating and net losses as of last year.

South Korea's financial watchdog said Wednesday that it has picked 175 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to be placed under debt restructuring this year as part of government-led efforts to sort out highly indebted firms and prevent their sudden collapse, Yonhap News Agency reported. The number of debt-heavy firms selected for 2015 rose by 50 to 175 this year from a year earlier, with 70 of them given a rating of "C" and the remaining 105 graded a "D," according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

The chief financial regulator said Wednesday that he will help creditors speed up restructuring of steel, petrochemical and shipping companies struggling to stay afloat after being hit hard by low demand in global markets, The Korea Times reported. Financial Services Commission Chairman Yim Jong-yong said he will support companies with potential to recover by injecting fresh money while kicking out corporations which are not sustainable. "We will discuss with other government agencies ways to strengthen competitiveness in the fields and directions for restructuring.

South Korea plans to open a government-led corporate restructuring market to speed up the liquidation of "zombie" companies and resuscitate marginal firms suffering a "temporary" financial stress, Xinhua reported. "Corporate restructuring led only by creditor banks faced limitations. It needs to encourage various market players to join it, and market-centered restructuring is preferred," Lee Myung Soon, director general of Financial Services Commission's financial and corporate restructuring policy bureau, told foreign correspondents in Seoul Friday.

South Korean exports in August plunged 14.7% from a year ago, Business Insider reported. This was much worse than the 5.9% decline expected by economists. And it was the biggest drop since August 2009. This is a troubling sign, as Korea's exports represent the world's imports.

The financial regulator will set up companies specializing in debt restructuring programs next year, seeking to let them take over jobs from lenders struggling to manage debt-driven corporations, The Korea Times reported. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said Friday it will establish debt-restructuring companies by collecting funds from banks. About 10 financial institutions are expected to join the project, including the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) and the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Korea Eximbank). "How much do bankers know about the shipbuilding industry?

While other countries fret over banks that are too big to fail, South Korea is grappling with the concept of systemically important human beings. Last week President Park Geun-hye announced a special pardon for Chey Tae-won, scion of the founding family of SK Group, South Korea’s third-biggest chaebol conglomerate. Mr Chey was halfway through a four-year jail sentence for embezzling more than $40m from SK companies — his second conviction for defrauding shareholders. But the country’s main business lobby groups campaigned for Mr Chey’s release on the basis of his importance to the economy.

South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd said on Monday it would sell non-core assets, and shut down or exit non-essential units as part of restructuring after a multi-billion dollar loss in the April-June quarter, The Economic Times reported. Daewoo Shipbuilding late last month reported a provisional second-quarter operating loss of 3.03 trillion won ($2.61 billion), citing construction delays on offshore projects such as oil and gas rigs.

With youth unemployment near a 15-year high and the government planning to raise the retirement age, intergenerational conflict over jobs is rising in South Korea, Bloomberg News reported. The jobless rate for workers aged 15 to 29 touched 11 percent earlier this year and is about four times higher than for those aged 40 and above. At the other end of the spectrum, Korea has an underdeveloped pension system and the highest elderly poverty rate in the OECD, as companies push employees in their fifties into early retirement to contain costs.