Food
E-Land Group, headed by Chairman Park Sung-su, is fiercely refuting the Korea Investors Service’s latest credit downgrade of its holding firm, E-Land World, vowing to file a lawsuit against the ratings agency affiliated with the U.S.-based Moody’s.
Officials at the mid-tier fashion-and-retail business group argued that the ratings agency’s assessment was flawed, calling on the company to retract its decision to cut the credit worthiness of E-Land World, which has a controlling stake in E-Land Retail and E-Land Park.
E-Land Retail owns Kim’s Club and other retail outlets, while E-Land Park operates hotels, restaurants and other leisure-related businesses.
On Monday, the Korea Investors Service lowered E-Land World’s credit ratings by one notch to BBB- from BBB, citing its deteriorating financial health as a result of snowballing debt. The agency maintained its negative outlook for the holding firm.
“We see no improvement for E-Land Group’s financial conditions even though it has implemented self-rescue measures,” a company analyst said. “With E-Land’s struggling retail and fashion businesses, it would be difficult for the company to generate an operating profit. It is uncertain as to whether E-Land would be able to improve its financial health by executing self-rescue plans.”
E-Land officials were furious over the credit downgrade, pledging to take the ratings agency to court.
“It is absurd for the Korea Investors Service to cut the credit ratings for E-Land World when it has successfully been improving its financial soundness over the past few months,” an E-Land Group spokesman said. “The agency assessed the holding firm based on the data available in early September. But it should have included what happened in the fourth quarter of 2016. This is what they did wrong.”
In late September, E-Land, sold its casual clothing brand, Teenie Weenie, to Chinese fashion brand, V-GRASS, for 1 trillion won ($900 million). Teenie Weenie has about 1,200 stores in major department stores and shopping malls in China.
The group, which has been desperate to raise cash over the past year, has also sold real estate and plans to list the shares of E-Land Retail in the first half of this year.
“We believe that the Korea Investors Service has failed to reflect a series of self-rescue moves in its credit assessment of E-Land World. This is just irrational,” the spokesman said. “We will file a lawsuit against the agency to correct its irresponsible behavior.”
