S.Korea's SsangYong Motor picks manager to sell Mahindra's stake

Samsung Securities Co

19/06/2020 09:34

SEOUL, June 19 (Reuters) - South Korea's SsangYong Motor
 003620.KS  has picked a manager to sell a stake held by India's
Mahindra and Mahindra  MAHM.NS , a spokesman at SsangYong said
on Friday. 
    SsangYong is looking for a new investor and has picked
Samsung Securities  016360.KS , which is working with its global
strategic partner Rothschild, to tap the market for interest,
South Korean media reported earlier on Friday. 
    The spokesman declined to name the adviser. Samsung
Securities declined comment. Rothschild did not immediately
reply to a request for comment. Mahindra, which holds a 74.65%
stake in SsangYong, was not immediately available for comment.
    SsangYong shares closed up 30% on Friday after the news
versus a 0.4% rise in the wider market  .KS11 . 
    An executive at Mahindra said last week that it is willing
to let go of its ownership stake in SsangYong.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN2DO0OT 
    The stake at is valued at 332 billion won ($274.59
million)as of Friday's closing. 
    The automaker suffered from sluggish sales even before the
spread of COVID-19 due to being increasingly sidelined in the
fiercely competitive sports utility vehicle (SUV) market, and in
the first quarter it marked its 13th consecutive quarterly
operating loss. 
    SsangYong provisionally sold 31,110 vehicles during
January-May this year in South Korea, down 35% from 47,731 in
the same period last year. It exported 8,097 vehicles, down 21%
from 10,299 in the same period last year.
    ($1 = 1,209.0700 won)

 (Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; additional reporting
by Aditi Shah; editing by Jason Neely)
 ((jungyoon.lee@tr.com; +82 2 6936 1467;))