STX drops bid for Hynix stake

(ATTN: ADDS more details from 4th para) SEOUL, Sept. 19 (Yonhap) -- STX Group, a South Korean shipbuilding and shipping conglomerate, said Monday that it has decided to drop its bid to buy stakes in Hynix Semiconductor Inc., citing global uncertainties and the size of future investments needed to bolster competitiveness of the world's No. 2 memory chipmaker. STX Group and SK Group, another South Korean conglomerate, have been racing to buy a controlling 15 percent stake in Hynix, estimated at around 1.5 trillion won (US$1.32 billion). Hynix Semiconductor's creditors-turned-shareholders plan to receive final bids for the chipmaker by Oct. 24 and will pick a preferred bidder in late October, according to the Korea Exchange Bank, which is leading the sale of Hynix. The creditor banks will discuss whether they will proceed with current sale process amid a lack of suitors after STX dropped out of bidding. Shares of STX Corp., a de facto holding firm of STX Group, closed at 16,300 won on the Seoul bourse, up 3.82 percent. The creditors' two previous attempts to sell Hynix Semiconductor were aborted as volatile business conditions in the global chipmaking sector and the need for additional funding made potential investors wary of the purchase. The creditors pumped $4.6 billion into Hynix through debt-equity swaps in 2001 and 2002 to keep it afloat.