Hanjin Shareholders Approve Restructuring

Hanjin Shipping’s shareholders approved its board’s decision to divide the company into two separate companies, Hanjin Shipping Holdings, a holding company, and Hanjin Shipping, an operating company, at a special shareholders meeting on Wednesday.

After the restructuring, Hanjin Shipping Holdings will concentrate on managing the subsidiaries, while Hanjin Shipping will maintain full control over the existing shipping business.

“While showing continued growth and stabilizing its financial structure through its container shipping and bulk shipping business, Hanjin Shipping has come to understand the need of implementing an advanced corporate governance system which will allow the company to cope with the rapidly changing business environment and secure its future-oriented corporate structure for sustainable growth,” the company said in a statement when the board’s decision was first announced on Sept. 16.

“The transformation into a holding company will allow its subsidiaries to focus on their core businesses through an independent/optimized strategy and distribution of their business resources,” Kim Young Min, Hanjin’s president and CEO, said in the announcement on Wednesday.

The stocks of Hanjin Shipping Holdings and Hanjin Shipping will be distributed to the shareholders according to the ratio of net asset of each company.

The stockholders with one share of the former Hanjin Shipping will be given 0.1616362 shares of Hanjin Shipping Holdings and 0.8383638 shares of new Hanjin Shipping. The face value per share will remain the same.

The existing stock in Hanjin Shipping will be suspended from trading as of Nov. 27, and will be re-listed on Dec. 29 after the official separation on Dec. 1.

Hanjin Shipping is Korea's largest shipping line and ranks as the world’s ninth-largest container line by capacity. Its fleet consists of 92 containerships with a capacity of 410,737 20-foot equivalent units, according to Alphaliner.

Contact Peter T. Leach at pleach@joc.com.