The aim is to provide professional yard management for Sungdong Shipbuilding which has been under the control of the Export-Import Bank of Korea.
Sungdong creditors have been seeking a management prepared to take on supervision of the yard with TradeWinds reporting last month that Hanjin or Samsung heavy industries were the preferred parties.
Hyundai and Daewoo were ruled out of the running as they had no appetite to take on the management of further capacity.
The Sungdong yard near Busan has a good order book with vessels for Scorpio, Nordic American, Tsakos, Thenamaris, Marmaras, Eastern Pacific, Navig8, Alcyon and Maersk yet to be delivered.
But producitivy of the yard, building vessels up to 180,000-dwt, is said to have deteriorated.
Samsung, one of the leading South Korean shipbuilders, will provided management expertise to Sungdong for a period of up to two years.
The Export-Import bank recently injected up to KRW 300bn ($270m) to boost Sungdong’s finances.
