As Seoul cuts financial lifeline, merger talk re-emerges between HMM and Hanjin

While the merger between China’s state-owned shipping lines China Shipping and Cosco nears completion, two of the other “most-likely” marriage candidates appear to have become under considerable pressure to reconsider their independence. Splash247 reports that South Korean compatriots Hyundai Merchant Marine and Hanjin Shipping, both with near-insurmountable debt mountains, are likely to have reopen merger talks after it was revealed that the South Korean government had declined to furnish them with further financial bailouts. “With Seoul unlikely to step in to help, merger talk is back, something that was denied repeatedly last year by both lines and even the government.”