이 기사는 2021년 10월 25일 07시38분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

South Korea's biggest carrier Korean Air Lines has injected funds into its wholly-owned subsidiary Wangsan Leisure Development again amid its pending sale of the company.

Hanjin Group, which owns Korean Air, has put Wangsan Leisure Development, operator of Wangsan Marina resort in Incheon, for sale early last year as part of its plan to offload its non-core assets. However, the group’s two previous attempts over the last two years all ended up failure.

Wangsan Leisure Development’s board has decided to carry out a 4 billion won ($3.4 million) rights offering under private placement. Newly-issued 800,000 shares have been acquired by its parent Korean Air. The air carrier also injected 4.3 billion won in April in the same way.

Wangsan Leisure Development has raised funds from its parent to secure working capital as it has halted its operations since early last year.

Wangsan Leisure Development was established in 2011 with an initial capital of 6 billion won by Korean Air to establish Wangsan Marina in Incheon.

Korean Air has decided to carry out leisure business restructuring as the company has never recorded a net profit since its establishment in 2011. Wangsan Leisure Development recorded an operating loss of 10.82 million won in 2012, which increased to 1.02 billion won in 2015, and 2.29 billion won in 2018. The company recorded an operating loss of 4.7 billion won in 2019 and 2.6 billion won in 2020.

Korean Air also has to support Wangsan Leisure Development as the two companies signed an arrangement with Korea Development Bank (KDB) in 2012 in which Korean Air will provide Wangsan Leisure Development with funds through rights offerings to help the company to service its debt. Wangsan Leisure Development has borrowed a total of 79.9 billion won from KDB and the remaining balance stood at 50.3 billion won as of the end of June.

Considering that Wangsan Leisure Development has never generated a profit, it can be said that Korean Air has to repay the entire amount.

Korean Air has participated in Wangsan Leisure Development’s rights issue almost every year since 2012. The air carrier has injected more than 150 billion won through multiple rounds of rights offering, including 30 billion won in 2012, 44 billion won in 2014, 12.3 billion won in 2016, 20 billion won in 2017, 22 billion won in 2018, 15 billion won in 2019, 1.2 billion won in 2020 and 8.3 billion won in 2021. Korean Air will be freed from the burden of repayment if it offloads Wangsan Leisure Development.

In June, Korean Air picked a consortium led by Consus Asset Management as a preferred bidder to buy 100% of Wangsan Leisure Development, but failed to sign a final contract.

Korean Air’s plan to sell its property in Songhyun-dong, Jongno-gu in central Seoul and hotel assets is also making little progress for two years. (Reporting by Su-jin Yoo)