With Hanjin’s future in doubt, carriers have announced they will hike container freight rates by as much as 50 percent beginning next month as retailers scramble to secure shipping ahead of the peak year-end holiday season, industry sources said.
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Last week, Hanjin shipping, one of the largest container shipping lines in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection.
South Korean government officials have also offered public funds to the company if it could raise its own cash, according to a BBC report, which says the company’s ships risk being seized by creditors if they dock.
Estimated total value of cargo now loaded on Hanjin Shipping vessels. Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho has vowed to put millions of dollars in private funds toward a damage-control effort, but a long-term solution to the worldwide bankruptcy crisis has yet to be fully ironed out.
An attorney for Hanjin, Ilana Volkov, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A bankrupt shipping company will be able to pay workers to unload goods from some US bound ships, potentially providing some relief to retailers whose products were stuck in limbo mere weeks before the holiday shopping season. Given Hanjin’s relatively young fleet, its capacity will likely find opportunistic buyers looking for discounted assets, Lee Klaskow, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a report dated August 31. The Seoul court said, however, that even if this came through the shipper needed more.
“With so many Hanjin ships barred from entering ports, shippers have no idea when their cargo will be unloaded”.
Hanjin Shipping now under receivership in South Korea has sought after court protection in the U.S.as its four ships have been stranded off the coast of the USA out of fears that they will be seized by creditors.
Since Hanjin Shipping filed for bankruptcy last week, scores of container vessels and hundreds of sailors have been stuck in legal limbo, unable to dock and unload for fear that they will be seized by the company’s creditors. The delay in rescue funding has placed Korea’s cargoes bound for the U.S.at risk as the Us bankruptcy court on Tuesday issued a provisional injunction for Hanjin ships calling at American ports until the shipper submits persuasive payment plans. The company handles an estimated 7.8% of trans-Pacific freight destined for the U.S.
Samsung ssnlf really is having an irritating couple of weeks-not only is it having to recall its flagship Note 7 phone over exploding-battery concerns, but it’s now revealed that about $38 million worth of its products and components are stranded on board two Hanjin ships.
The tech giant is considering chartering 16 cargo planes to fulfill its shipment contracts, principally to the United States.
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Meanwhile, both Yang Ming and Evergreen have terminated their partnership agreements with Hanjin, the bureau said, adding that they would dispatch larger ships to help transport goods if necessary.
