Currency Crisis and Difficulties for Oversea Affiliate: A Case Study on the Restructuring of Korean Affiliates in the U.S. Since 1990, Korean firms have actively engaged in FDI as part of their growing targeting of overseas markets. However, this expansion overseas has reversed course dramatically in the wake of the Asian crisis. During the initial eight months of 1998, FDI from Korean firms sharply decreased and this trend is expected to continue for at least the short-term. Not only have plans to purchase assets and companies in the U.S. been largely scraped, but the difficulties of domestic parent companies have affected affiliates already operating in the U.S. As domestic parent companies face the need to reduce debt to equity ratios, this has weakened their ability to act as guarantor of credit applications by overseas affiliates.

This inability to guarantee affiliate loans is significant as many Korean overseas affiliates continue to post losses. While parent companies were able to compensate for the deficits of overseas affiliates in the past, the drastic plunge in financial health of Korean parent firms in the last year has largely ended such ability. In response, practically every overseas Korean affiliate has been undergoing restructuring in an effort to make efficient those operations that hold out the potential for profit and dispose of the rest.

Korean affiliates have already reduced their size of operations, shed expansion plans, sold assets and some have even been forced to withdraw foreign operations.

Factors determining corporate restructuring patterns and process can be categorized into such as orporate level, industry level. Factors in the corporate level can make a profound influence on the restructuring process. For example, if a parent company goes bankrupty, then in most case, foreign affiliates no longer continue their operation. In this case, they can not but to sell their assets and withdraw from that country.

And factors in the industry level also affect the restructuring process. For example companies in semi-conductor sector where exists oversupply and market prospect is dismal cannot easily circumvent the crisis. So they now put off their whole investment project indefinitely.

Many of the best examples of suffering Korean affiliates operating in the U.S. come from the semiconductor and consumer electronics sectors. The Samsung, Hyundai, LG chaebols all took over U.S. semi-conductor or telecom companies, paying high prices to do so, and have since suffered continued significant losses. Not long after purchasing a 55% stake in perennial U.S. money loser Zenith Electronics, LG Electronics has been forced to send Zenith to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. LG's plan, should it be accepted by the court, will give LG 100% ownership of Zenith; however, the operations of the latter will be scaled back to a fraction of what they once were. Zenith has seen only one profitable year in more than a decade after getting clobbered in a grueling industry price war. The losses have forced Zenith to sell many of its peripheral businesses and go through downsizings. Attempting to compensate, Zenith invested in new technology, such as Internet television boxes, cable modems, and high-definition TV systems, and it upgraded color picture tube production capabilities.

Other examples of struggling Korean affiliates in the U.S. include Samsung's PC maker AST Research, which has already sold most overseas assets, including buildings, real estate and other assets, and has reduced the number of employees from 6,000 in 1995 to 600 as of November, 1998.

The primary cause of the difficulties was the inefficient operations themselves. AST was at one time among the fastest-growing high-technology firms in the world. The company stumbled its way to the computer market's version of skid row thanks to slow product introductions, and the dominance of cutthroat competitors. AST, which in the past has been split between consumer and corporate customers, intends to cater more to small-and medium-sized companies.
Not only is downscaling prevalent, many affiliates are being sold outright. These include the sale of Hyundai's Symbios, Odeum, TV/COM and Samsung's SMS and IGT. The Ssangyong Group disposed some of its overseas assets including two hotels for $150.5 million under the group's restructuring drive. Ssangyong Engineering & Construction Co. sold its two Marriott Residence Inn hotels for $30.5 million to Sunstone Hotel Investor, a U.S. investment trust company. Meanwhile, Ssangyong Cement Industrial Co. sold its cement factory in California, Riverside Cement Co., for $120 million to Texas Industries Inc. At that time, Under the assumption that the won/dollar exchange rate stands at 1,800 to the greenback, Ssangyong was expected to secure some 270 billion won in business funds through the disposal of its overseas assets.

Shinhan Bank realized a profit of $20 million by selling its US subsidiary, Marine National Bank(MNB), to the First Security Bank. Since its takeover of MNB in September 1996, Shinhan increased MNB's equity capital from $8 million to $30 million, while expanding its total assets from $100 million to $240 million. "This increase in value was the key for the successful sale of MNB," said an official of the bank. Hanil Bank had sold its affiliate in Los Angeles, the First Statebank of Southern California, to the Popular Bank of the United States for US$34 million and saw profit of US$19 million from the sale. The California bank, acquired by Hanil in 1982, has assets worth US$170 million and posted a net profit of US$1.3 million in the 1997 fiscal year.

While the Asian financial crisis brought to light the difficulties of the operations of Korean affiliates in the U.S., it was a secondary cause in many case including AST, Zenith. The primary cause of the difficulties was the inefficient operations themselves. Thus, There is an urgent need for corporate restructuring toward quality to prevent the health of Korean assets in the U.S. from deteriorating even further.

Ⅰ. 外換危機 이후 우리나라의 對美 직접투자 변화
1. 國內 대기업의 미국진출 사례 및 동기
2. 外換危機 이후 對美 직접투자 추이 변화

Ⅱ. 美國 현지법인의 구조조정 요인 및 특징
1. 구조조정 요인 및 특징
2. 구조조정 유형

Ⅲ. 美國 현지법인의 構造調整 실태 및 애로요인 事例
1. 電子業種
2. 建設業
3. 銀行
4. 食料品
5. 纖維業

Ⅳ. 結論 및 示唆點
1. 對美 직접투자의 문제점
2. 시사점

參考文獻