Dive Brief:
- Hanjin Shipping was offered a combined $100 million in separate deals to help the company liberate stranded cargo.
- The company's main creditor, Korea Development Bank opened a new $45 million credit line for the company while its third largest shareholder approved a $54 million lending deal to the company.
- Hanjin has been left largely to the fate of its creditors as the South Korean government refused to bail the company out. Legal disputes over stranded cargo abound for the company, but the influx of capital should help release some, but not all, of the $14 million worth of goods still stranded as of last week.
Dive Insight:
Each day brings the Hanjin crisis a little closer to resolution. When Hanjin first filed for bankruptcy so many ports declared they would not receive Hanjin-associated ships or containers, even by rail, that the company had to route its goods to a series of "safe" ports.
In response, industry leaders have called on the U.S. and South Korean governments to step in to ensure the proper delivery of their goods and various governments have provided the ships bankruptcy protection but cargo is a different story. It was not until the most recent influx of capital that goods began to move, again, signaling a near end to the crisis.
As cargo begins to move, though, a new problem arose in the form of empty containers.
Hanjin branded containers are not necessarily owned by the company, Maritime Executive reports, and the cost of storing them for a bankrupt company is too high for comfort. However, the Port of Oakland recently announced it had set aside a storage space for the empty containers awaiting resolution and the International Longshoremen's Association also resumed handling despite concerns over payment.
Over all, the tide appears to be turning for companies affected by the crisis, at least for now.
