Court orders reassessment of Ssangyong Motor's viability

By Kim Deok-hyun
SEOUL, July 7 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean court has ordered an accounting firm to
reassess the viability of Ssangyong Motor Co., which is under bankruptcy
proceedings, as its troubles deepen amid a prolonged strike, a company official
said Tuesday.
"I recently learned that the court ordered Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers to
re-investigate the corporate value of Ssangyong Motor," the automaker's
court-appointed manager Lee Yoo-il told reporters.
The accounting firm Samil will focus on evaluating how much the 46-day strike by
about 1,000 laid off workers at Ssangyong's only assembly plant has harmed the
carmaker's value as an ongoing entity, Lee said.
In May, Samil concluded that Ssangyong was worth saving instead of liquidating in
order to recoup debts. If the new study suggests that the value of liquidating
Ssangyong exceeds that of maintaining the automaker, the company will be deemed
insolvent, Lee said.
Hit by plunging sales and mounting debt, Ssangyong, the smallest automaker in
South Korea, won the court's permission to enter bankruptcy protection in
February.
As part of its survival bid, Ssangyong pledged to cut 36 percent of its
workforce, or 2,646 employees.
Since then, some 1,670 workers have left the company through voluntary retirement
plans while the remaining 976 workers have gone on strike.
The striking workers have occupied Ssangyong's sole assembly plant in the port
city of Pyeongtaek, about 70km south of Seoul, since May 21 to protest the
massive job-cut plan.
Violent clashes erupted late last month as some 3,000 employees tussled with the
dismissed workers to end the strike, leaving scores injured.
In the first six months of this year, Ssangyong's auto sales plunged 73.9 percent
from the same period last year to 13,020 units.
(END)