Hopes are growing that Samsung Heavy Industries Co. would be able to successfully sell 1.1 trillion won ($982.3 million) worth of new shares to be offered next month after it found out new share sale plan has drawn higher than expected interest from its employees.

According to Samsung Heavy Industries on Tuesday, demand among its employees to buy new company shares has exceeded the initially planned volume based on applications received from October 4 to 7. As part of efforts to raise capital to bolster its financial health, the company in August announced a plan to issue 159,124,614 new shares worth 1.1 trillion won. Based on local financial law, 20 percent (or 31,824,922 shares for Samsung Heavy Industries) of newly issued shares should be reserved for employees.

Nearly all of about 12,000 Samsung Heavy Industries employees including office and production workers are known to have applied to subscribe new shares, with each reportedly making an average investment of 19 million won.

Samsung Heavy Industries is expected to finalize the new share price on November 2 before receiving official subscriptions from employees on November 7. Offerings for existing shareholders will be held between November 7 and 8, while the remaining new shares will be offered to the public on November 10 and 11. Newly issued shares will be listed on November 28.

The world’s third largest shipbuilder and its bigger peers, Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., have been seeking to sell their assets or cut costs to raise funds as they are grappling with liquidity woes amid a slowdown in the global economy and a prolonged slump in oil prices that has dampened vessel demand across the world.

By Park Yong-beom

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