Ibok-hyeon, head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), noted that MBK Partners, the major shareholder of Homeplus, is essentially lying and has reiterated the pressure. The FSS is currently inspecting and investigating the circumstances surrounding MBK Partners' application for corporate rehabilitation procedures and allegations of fraudulent bond issuance.
On the 26th, the head appeared on MBC Radio's "Lee Jong-bae's Focus" and said, "MBK Partners does not say when it will repay the ABSTB (Homeplus card payment asset-backed commercial paper)" and added, "If it cannot promise what the funding will be, then it can be seen as a lie to hide the situation."
On the 4th, Homeplus applied for corporate rehabilitation procedures, stating that its credit rating had fallen from A3 to A3-, indicating issues with short-term funding. According to Kwang-min Gyeong, a lawmaker from the People Power Party, the total balance of short-term bonds such as Homeplus commercial paper (CP) and asset-backed securities for card payments amounts to 594.9 billion won, of which 207.5 billion won has been sold to individual investors.
The head stated, "Although they claim that the short-term bond is 400 billion won and that MBK Partners guarantees the principal, if it had liquidity to guarantee the principal quickly, they would not have applied for rehabilitation." He emphasized, "MBK Partners is issuing promissory notes to avoid a difficult situation, and I will check the appropriateness of this."
It was also believed that MBK Partners is intentionally clouding the market. The head said, "MBK Partners throws out statements that can be misunderstood in the market, which seems intentional," and added, "We will see how sincerely they can proceed with the rehabilitation process and financial claim adjustments."
The head also remarked that the situation of TAEYOUNG E&C, which applied for a workout (corporate restructuring) last year, is different from that of MBK Partners. He stated, "MBK Partners is truly cutting at others' bones rather than their own," and noted that they receive fees even if there are no profits as a managing organization (GP). He did not reveal the specific scale of fees for MBK Partners but mentioned that it is at a level where they add a '0' to the figures that the market assumes.
The head stated, "If they made that much profit, it is comparable to the economic levels held by large enterprise chairpersons," and added, "There is a tendency to socialize losses and privatize profits, so we will conduct an investigation."
He expressed doubts about the circumstances under which MBK Partners applied for Homeplus's corporate rehabilitation procedures. MBK Partners rushed to the court on the next business day after Homeplus's credit rating dropped, meaning that they did not make any efforts for self-rescue.
The head stated, "We will reveal the background and motives of the rehabilitation application during the inspection process," and added, "Many experts have questions about the fact that they applied for rehabilitation the day after the credit rating dropped, and the FSS also believes that this aspect needs to be clarified."