▲ JoongAng Ilbo
JoongAng Ilbo, currently facing a liquidity crisis, has officially declared default after failing to meet payment obligations on 22 billion won in commercial paper.
The company formally filed for a workout—a corporate debt restructuring program—with its main creditor bank, Hana Bank, yesterday.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART), JoongAng Ilbo announced that it reached a final default today due to insufficient funds to cover the maturing commercial paper.
The commercial paper in question was held by Hanyang Securities.
The original maturity dates for the paper were December 7 of this year and March 30 of next year.
However, as JoongAng Group recently faced a liquidity crisis, an "event of default" occurred, triggering a clause for early repayment before the original maturity dates.
Consequently, the creditor, Hanyang Securities, strongly demanded early repayment yesterday.
When JoongAng Ilbo failed to meet this demand, it led to an initial default yesterday, followed by a final default today.
JoongAng Ilbo stated, "As we are in the process of pursuing a workout, we must maintain equity among all creditors."
The company's position is that it is difficult to repay specific creditors individually ahead of others.
Other major affiliates of JoongAng Group are also facing serious crises.
General programming channel JTBC also disclosed that 36 billion won in commercial paper presented to Woori Bank for payment has been processed as an initial default.
However, JTBC drew a line, stating that this was a measure taken in accordance with a court-ordered asset preservation order and does not constitute grounds for a suspension of trading due to a final default.
Previously, five JoongAng Group affiliates, including JTBC, JoongAng Holdings, and Contentree JoongAng, had already filed for court receivership.
Park Jang-hee, CEO of JoongAng Ilbo, explained the background of the workout application on the 15th, stating it was a "self-rescue effort to preemptively block risks from affiliates."
Meanwhile, Hanyang Securities, a major creditor, maintains that there are no issues regarding the recovery of its investments.
Hanyang Securities emphasized, "We have already secured a senior collateral structure, so our claims are thoroughly protected and separated from the debtor's general assets."
The firm further projected that 73.1 billion won, or 87% of its total exposure of 84 billion won to JoongAng Group, would be recovered without difficulty within this year.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.