Photo Courtesy of Forbes.com
As if nick of time, beleaguered Hanjin must be feeling hopeful now as billionaire and ports magnate Enrique Razon, Jr. is considering to cash at the Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines Inc. (HHIC-Phil) and save them from financial woes.While HHIC-Phil’s rehabilitation receiver Stefani Saño did not throw his towel in the imminent shutdown of Hanjin, and still expected that they would be able to find a white knight and get the much needed additional loans and resuscitate their operations.
Razon, the Philippines’ 5th richest man on Forbes’ list is the chairman of the country’s leading terminal operator International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI), with $1.1 billion in sales.
According to Department of Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez, Razon’s experience and business acumen in similar and allied field such as ports operations and management, he is the most qualified to take over of Hanjin and as businessman, he knows the big potential that is in stored for him when he grabs this opportunity.
Just last week, Bloomberg mentioned that Razon saw “some potentials” in acquiring and developing Hanjin’s facilities in Subic Bay since the ship building companyhas already the infrastructure in place which can be developed further and even transformed in possible industrial complex that would cover container port facilities, a liquefied natural gas terminal, dry bulk handling facilities and an LNG power plant.
Early last month, in the DTI 2018 Accomplishment Report and Program Outlook for 2019 attended by The Philippine Business and News, the Trade Chief mentioned that there were several interested parties who expressed their intentions to take over Hanjin and they event got inquiries from Chinese investors interested in the facilities.
The embattled HHIC-Phil has a financial obligations amounting to P21 billion in debts to 5 biggest banks in the country. But Hanjin clarified that they were just affected by the global economic slowdown that resulted to their cashflow problem.
On the other hand the Trade Chief said, “even if Hanjin was affected by a slowdown in the global shipping business, its bankruptcy stemmed from cash flow problems related to its payment terms for its shipping orders.”
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