Ford Motor to send team to help ailing Kia Motors

Ford Motor to send team to help ailing Kia Motors

SEOUL (AFP): A team from the U.S. Ford Motor Co., will arrive
in Seoul this week to seek ways to help ailing Kia Motors, while
the government said yesterday it was seeking a formula to save
the auto maker.

"Ford will send a team sometime this week to Kia Motors to
examine ways to help," Yonhap news agency quoted Kim Sun-hong,
chairman of Kia Group, as telling reporters while attending the
Frankfurt Motor Show.

Kim said he had recently paid a visit to Ford Motor, which has
a 9.39 percent stake in Kia, to explain the financial problems
facing the parent group, South Korea's eighth-largest
conglomerate.

Meanwhile, vice-minister of Finance and Economy Kang Man-soo
said the government was trying to come up with ways to solve the
Kia crisis, and at the same time minimize losses for the creditor
banks.

He said the government was having a difficult time trying to
come up with a solution since it does not favor a third party
takeover of the auto maker and the conglomerate is against court
protection.

"We are planning to solve the Kia problem by saving Kia Motors
and minimizing creditor banks' loss," Kang told reporters.

News reports said Kang had hinted that Kia Motors might be put
under creditor banks' management, saying "there are several ways
of how it could be managed by banks."

The Naewoe Economic Daily quoted an unnamed ministry official
that under such an arrangement, the current management could
remain, while the banks managed the financial side.

The Kia Group was put under bank protection in July and faces
being declared insolvent when a two-month grace period for loan
repayments expires on Sept. 29 -- if self-rescue and bail-out
plans do not work out.