Kumho Petrochemical Co. has taken issue with Asiana Airlines’ recent sale of its stake in Kumho Terminal to Kumho & Company by requesting related documents on Monday.
Industry watchers see the move as an attack on Park Sam-koo, chairman of Asiana Airlines’ parent company Kumho Asiana Group, by his brother Park Chan-koo, who heads Kumho Petrochemical.
Kumho Petrochemical chairman Park Chan-koo (left) and Park Sam-koo, chairman of Asiana Airlines’ parent company Kumho Asiana Group (Yonhap)
As the second-largest shareholder of Asiana Airlines, Kumho Petrochemical has criticized the sale of Kumho Terminal to the financially-troubled Kumho & Company, saying that it was not in the interests of Asiana and its shareholders.
Kumho & Company is a special purpose company that Park Sam-koo set up in order to buyback Kumho Industrial, the holding company of his Kumho Asiana Group.
After buying Asiana Airlines’ 100 percent stake in Kumho Terminal for 270 billion won ($230 million), Kumho & Company announced last week that it would be pursuing a merger with Kumho Terminal.
Kumho Petrochemical has raised questions over Asiana Airlines’ explanation that the merger was “a sale of non-core assets as a part of restructuring efforts to strengthen Asiana Airlines’ financial stability.”
Kumho Petrochemical has requested documents that show the decision-making process behind the sale, according to an Asiana Airlines spokesman.
He said that the sale was legally sound, and that Asiana has yet to decide whether to comply with Kumho Petrochemical’s requests for documents.
After years of squabbling between the two brothers about the operational direction of the Kumho empire, Kumho Petrochemical and its subsidiaries were completely separated from Kumho Asiana Group last year by a decision from the Supreme Court.
Even after the separation, Park Chan-koo remained vocal about his criticisms of Kumho Asiana’s management. At Kumho Asiana’s shareholder meeting in March, the younger Park sent a representative to speak out against Kumho Asiana’s management of its strained finances.
By Won Ho-jung (
hjwon@heraldcorp.com)