GM Korea’s net loss reached 900 billion won ($830.9 million) last year, bringing the accumulated deficit over the last four years to nearly 3 trillion won, said state-lender Korea Development Bank currently engaged in negotiation with General Motors that demands shared funding while flagging the option of pulling entirely out of the Korean market.

GM Korea reported to Korean authorities that its net and operating losses hit 900 billion won and 800 billion won, respectively, last year. The company cannot raise funds on its own since debt by far overwhelms equity.

The automaker posted net loss of 353.4 billion won in 2014, 986.8 billion won in 2015, and 631.5 billion won in 2016. Net loss had reached 527.0 billion won by the end of September last year. Its sales for full 2017 are estimated at 10.7 trillion won, the lowest since 2009 when the company posted 9.5 trillion won following the global financial crisis.

GM issued redundant notices to irregular workers at the Gunsan factory that it plans to close down in May and has been receiving voluntary early retirement applications from the entire 16,000 workforce in four factories in Korea.

GM announced it was shuttering Gunsan plant and could take additional steps while demanding the KDB, the second largest stakeholder with 17 percent, and the government to extend aid and tax breaks, to keep the rest of the operations afloat.

GM Korea, formerly Daewoo Motor that mostly assembles GM global models since going under the Detroit-based automaker in 2001, has been producing at just half of its capacity after GM went into stringent global restructuring following its near-bankruptcy crisis.

Gunsan factory for instance ran at 20 percent of its capacity for the last three years.

GM offered to assign new models to the Korean lines if union agrees to wage freeze and other restructuring terms and if the government helps out.

The American carmaker has already pulled out of Europe, India, Russia, and South Africa.

By Kang Young-woon and Cho Jeehyun

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