YTN's New Owner to Be Decided Today... Hanse, Yujin, and Unification Church in Three-Way Battle

The new owner of the news channel YTN will be decided on the 23rd. The candidates are Hanse Industrial, Eugene Group, and the Global Peace Foundation (One Korea Media Holdings).

The submission of bids and the bid opening by Hanse Industrial, Eugene Group, and the Global Peace Foundation will take place at 4 p.m. on the 23rd at the Grand Hyatt Seoul Hotel. Although there had been movements from Korea Economic Daily, Maeil Business Newspaper, and Donghwa Enterprise, the major shareholder of Hankook Ilbo, to participate in the YTN acquisition battle, it has been confirmed that only these three parties participated in the final bidding.

YTN Building

Hanse Industrial, a clothing export specialist company, is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and original design manufacturer (ODM) specializing company, a mid-sized company with a market capitalization of 810 billion KRW.

Eugene Group has over 50 affiliates in businesses such as building materials and distribution, finance, logistics and IT, and leisure and entertainment.

The Global Peace Foundation is led by Chairman Moon Hyun-jin, the third son of the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church). One Korea Media Holdings is a corporation established by Chairman Moon to acquire YTN.

The sale target is 13 million shares of YTN (a 30.95% stake) held by KEPCO KDN and Korea Racing Authority. KEPCO KDN and the Racing Authority will close bidding at 3:30 p.m. on the 23rd and announce the highest bidder at 4 p.m. Since none of the bidders are large corporations restricted by cross-shareholding, nor are they media companies publishing daily newspapers, they can acquire more than 30% of YTN shares without special restrictions.

Once the new owner of YTN is decided on that day, it will be finalized after review by the Korea Communications Commission. The review process takes 2 to 3 months.

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