President Bae Jae-hoon Reappointed, Focuses on Strengthening HMM Profitability

Hae-jun Bae, CEO of HMM, is being interviewed by Asia Economy on the 27th. / Photo by Ho-nam Moon munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] HMM President Bae Jae-hoon will lead the company for one more year, focusing on strengthening profitability.

According to industry sources on the 14th, HMM will resolve the agenda for President Bae's reappointment at the shareholders' meeting scheduled for the 26th. Earlier, on the 5th, the management recommendation committee, including HMM's largest shareholders Korea Development Bank and Korea Ocean Business Corporation, held a meeting and unanimously recommended President Bae as the sole candidate to lead the next HMM as CEO through a written resolution.

The management recommendation committee highly evaluated HMM's achievement of its best performance since its founding last year, recording its first annual profit in 10 years, and decided on President Bae's reappointment.

President Bae took office as HMM president in March 2019 through the 'Hyundai Merchant Marine Management Recommendation Committee.' He previously served as Vice President of Overseas Marketing at LG Electronics MC and CEO of the logistics company Pantos. Korea Development Bank highly valued President Bae's global sales capabilities and management skills.

Since taking office, President Bae succeeded in escaping losses by reducing operating costs and improving the financial structure, recording an operating profit of 980.8 billion KRW last year. As of the end of last year, the debt ratio improved to 455.1%, down 101.6 percentage points from the previous year.

To improve profitability, HMM focused first on securing large container ships. The plan was to achieve economies of scale and secure price competitiveness. In 2018, the government supported 3.1 trillion KRW to order about 20 ultra-large container ships.

In April last year, HMM joined the new shipping alliance 'THE Alliance,' which significantly reduced freight costs. Joint operation of vessels enables cost reduction.

During this term, President Bae is expected to receive ultra-large container ships and maximize a high-efficiency, low-cost fleet structure to maintain a profitable structure. Upon completion of the ultra-large ship deliveries, HMM's container capacity will increase from 720,000 TEU to about 850,000 TEU.

To enhance operational efficiency, HMM launched the 'COMPASS' service in November last year, a next-generation shipping logistics system developed in-house. This system allows integrated management of shipping operations information such as vessel operation, contracts, reservations, transportation, as well as personnel and administration.

Additionally, to enhance competitiveness, HMM plans to secure sales capabilities through cooperation with global shipowners, strengthen information technology (IT) capabilities, and reinforce the bulk sector. Financial information provider FnGuide forecasts that HMM will continue its profit trend for the second consecutive year with an operating profit of 2.3842 trillion KRW and sales of 8.6127 trillion KRW this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.