Hanjin Bankruptcy: a Harbinger for the Global Economy?
by Bob Adelmann
TheNewAmerican.com
Thursday, 08 September 2016
South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping was the world’s seventh-largest container shipping company, moving (until last week) 100 million tons of cargo on its 200 cargo ships from manufacturers to retailers across the globe. Last week, following years of losses as the global economy has slowed, Hanjin declared bankruptcy. That move stranded 90 of those ships as off-loading companies refused to unload them over concerns that they wouldn’t be paid.
Even an offer of $90 million from what’s left of Hanjin (including $36 million from the personal assets of its chairman) fell far short of the necessary $543 million estimated to unload all of its ships that are now circling ports around the world.
Concerns are mounting that the delay in offloading (retailers are scurrying to make other arrangements to get access to their goods in time for the holiday season) will impact Black Friday shopping and well into the Christmas season. Samsung, for example, has an estimated $40 million worth of refrigerators and other appliances, along with Galaxy smartphones and other “visual” products, waiting to be unloaded.
The offloading is being complicated by creditors seizing some of those ships as collateral for loans they’ve made to Hanjin over the years.
What’s surprising is that Hanjin’s bankruptcy has caught the national media by surprise. The Wall Street Journal published a major article on Hanjin’s difficulties on Wednesday, managing to say nothing about Hanjin being the first example of what is likely to be a series of similar bankruptcies occurring all across the international supply chain.
The Rest…HERE
