Kumho Buslines locked in conflict
Some 150 workers at Kumho Buslines, the nation’s largest express bus operator that was sold to a private equity fund in 2012, blocked its newly appointed managers from entering its head office in southern Seoul, Wednesday.
A labor dispute inside Kumho Buslines is simmering since the equity fund, IBK Securities-Keistone Partners, recently unveiled a plan to sell the bus operator to another private equity fund.
IBK Securities-Keistone Partners appointed Kim Dae-jin and Park Bong-seop as the bus firm’s co-presidents to push for the sale.
Kim and Park, along with some 20 security guards, attempted to enter the company offices on the ninth floor of the Seoul Express Bus Terminal in southern Seoul at around 4:50 a.m. However, some 150 employees of the bus firm locked the office door and blocked them from entering.
Kim and Park had to leave the building after a six-hour confrontation with the workers.
The workers claim the managerial shakeup and selling the company to a private equity fund rep- resents a breach of contract.
When IBK Securities-Keistone Partners acquired the bus firm from the cash-strapped Kumho Asiana Group in 2012 for about 330 billion won, the equity fund promised to negotiate first with the original owner if selling the firm, and not to conduct a managerial shakeup.
After the group resolved imminent liquidity problems, it wanted to buy back the bus firm. The equity fund demanded more than 600 billion won, which the group did not accept.
After the negotiations failed, the equity fund said it would sell the bus firm to another equity firm.
IBK Securities-Keistone Partners claim the group and the bus firm are attempting to obstruct its sale.
The equity fund held a shareholders’ meeting in November and dismissed Kumho Buslines CEO Kim Sung-san, saying he interrupted the sale by blocking sales procedures and refusing to submit documents for which it had asked. The former CEO filed for a court injunction to nullify his dismissal, claiming it was not made under due process. But a local court recently rejected that argument.