Seoul: Dongkuk Steel Mill has said it may form a consortium with other steel-makers to buy a controlling stake in Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.
"Any concrete step to form a consortium has not been taken but we exchanged views with some steel-makers recently for the purpose," said Dongkuk Steel Chairman Chang Sae-Joo.
The company is looking to form a consortium because it can't buy the stake on its own, said SK Securities analyst Kim Yong-Soo, pointing out that Daewoo Shipbuilding's market capitalization amounts to about KRW9 trillion ($9.6 billion).
The target company is the world's third-largest shipbuilder by order backlog, after Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries.
State-run Korea Development Bank owns 31.3% of Daewoo Shipbuilding while state-owned Korea Asset Management Corp. holds 19.1%.
The sale of KDB's stakes in Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc was originally planned for this year, but is likely to be delayed to 2009.
Hanadaetoo Securities analyst Chang Keun-Ho said: "Any sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding is unlikely in the near future. It may not happen this year as the new government apparently hopes to tackle the issue of privatizing state-run financial institutions first." [09/01/08]
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