Hope for Pantech’s revival is real. 3 declaration of intent were submitted for the open sale on the last day of the pre-bidding day. However, there isn’t much information on which companies have submitted so the future of Pantech is still in the fog.

According to the industry on the 19th, the businesses that submitted the letter of intent include US social network service (SNS) company, domestic real estate development company, and a private investor. The chief editors in sale, Samjung KPMG and KDB Daewoo Securities, did not receive any documents until the morning of last day for submitting letter of intent, which was the 17th. It seems the letters were submitted right before the deadline had neared.

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<After 3 letters of intent were submitted, Pantech has hope for revival. Yet, the situation is still unclear.>>

Because there were 2 cases already where the sale did not meet agreement on both sides, the court is being serious and careful as much as they can. Therefore they put order on the ones in charge of the sale to keep their mouth shut about the countries that submitted. The take over was nullified for the unidentified US asset management company, One Value Asset Management, in the early 2015. That is why they will be testing the funding and financing capacities of applied companies.

The order of process is reviewing the letter of intent, provide survey information, register bidding documents and evaluate, select the prior cooperating company, contract investment, and submission of blueprint for revitalization. The chief editors will provide the submitted companies with investing manual and bidding information individually.

Now having new investing company candidates, Pantech has hope of starting again. However, situation is not all smiles. The debt is nearly 900 million USD and they had lost their power in economy market after a year of near bankruptcy. It seems it will take awhile to find their place in the market even after a successful sale.

Concerns for the new investor is big issue as well. Questions are arousing because the court is not revealing the companies in details that had submitted letter of intent. Because the value of Pantech has dropped, there are concerns if the companies are trying to take over the Pantech at a low price.

The internal members of Pantech are observing carefully as well. They cannot do anything until a prior cooperative company appears. If they fail to sale this times, they have no choice but to pay off and hand over the company.

Staff Reporter Ahn, Hocheon | hcan@etnews.com