Companies Improve Financial Structure

The financial structure of companies has become better due to restructuring moves. Many companies have lowered their debt ratios under the government-mandated 200 percent.
Inchon Steel lowered its debt ratio from the 279 percent it held at the end of June, 1998 to under 200 percent due to capital increases by additional issuance of stocks.
The company finished repaying its high-interest debt which it had borrowed at a 15-percent interest rate by issuing 400 billion won worth of commercial paper at an interest rate of 10 percent.
Crown Confectionery lowered its debt ratio from the staggering 19,000 percent it possessed at the end of June last year to a modest 400 percent by selling real-estate holdings and re-evaluating its assets.
The Korea Stock Exchange revealed that 291 companies re-evaluated their assets, bringing them in-line with current market values, to improve their financial structures and 11 of them also increased capital through additional share offerings.
Kang Heun Ku, an executive at ING Berring said, 'Foreign funds are now tending to rush into the Korean market in order to escape the financial instability in Brazil and Russia.'