South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) plans to list its specialty ship business within this year, earlier than originally planned to raise funds amid growing concerns over the debt-ridden shipbuilder’s restructuring schedule following delayed payments for ship orders and a series of prosecution’s extensive investigation on its illegalities.

According to sources from the shipbuilding industry and DSME’s creditors on Sunday, the troubled Korean shipbuilder plans to submit an additional self-rescue plan to creditors this week after the promised payment of 1 trillion won ($895 million) from Angolan state oil firm Sonangol EP for its two drill ship orders placed to DSME in 2013 has been delayed, adding to the company’s woes.

As part of efforts to secure funds, the shipbuilder will seek to spin off its lucrative specialty ship business and have it go public within this year, earlier than the market expectation of the next year. The company will also request ship owners to pay for ships earlier than originally agreed.

Luckily, four ship owners in Asia and Europe have already agreed to advance payments adding up to $470 million, enough to pay 400 billion won commercial papers due in September.

It is also in talks with other ship owners to get advance payments for offshore plant construction orders. It gives discounted order rates to clients who make the payments in advance, a measure that doesn’t hurt the shipbuilder either because the won-dollar exchange rate increased from the range of 1,000-1,050 won against the dollar around the year 2014 when the orders had been settled, to the range of 1,100-1,200 won recently.

It has also reached an agreement with another ship owner to receive an advance payment of $150 million for an offshore plant project.

The financially-strapped shipbuilder is in a deep trouble as its top management has been under prosecutors’ extensive probe on a range of irregularities and wrongdoings including accounting frauds. Its chief financial officer and vice president Kim Yul-jung was the latest who had been questioned by prosecutors last week for alleged charges of cooking accounting books.

By Park Yong-beom

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]