[THE INVESTOR] Finding a new majority shareholder for HI Investment and Securities continues at a sluggish pace, despite earlier hopes.

Those overseeing the sale have been sending out information for potential buyers since mid-July, but have received no positive responses.

Hyundai Heavy Industries plans to sell 85.3 percent stake in HI Investment within the year as part of plans to streamline its operations. However, market watchers had forecast difficulties due to the disparity between its market evaluation and HHI’s expectations. By market estimates, the deal would be worth about 500 billion won (US$457 million), which would spell heavy losses for HHI, having injected over 1 trillion won into the company. 

However, the government’s plan to nurture large investment banks has fed hopes for the quicker-than-expected sale of HI Investment.

Under the plan, the government intends to widen the scope of business for securities companies with 4 trillion won or more in capital.

As such, companies with about 3 trillion won capital -- Korea Investment and Securities and Samsung Securities -- were considered likely to enter bids. Samsung Securities’ capital stood at about 3.38 trillion won, while that of Korea Investment came to 3.17 trillion won at the end of the first quarter.

However, Samsung Securities has since said it has no interest in the deal, while Korea Investment says it is only considering the deal as one of many possible means of increasing capital.

Chinese firms mentioned in connection with the deal have also since denied related rumors.

In addition to the apparent lack of interest, opposition from HI Investment’s labor union is likely to further slow a potential sale.

On Aug. 8, the union announced it would resist any plan to sell the company to those seeking “short-term profits.”

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)