Financial Supervisory Service Begins Identifying Individual Sales Amounts Including Homeplus CP

As Homeplus enters corporate rehabilitation proceedings, concerns over losses among individual investors who purchased commercial papers (CP) and electronic short-term bonds have grown, prompting the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to investigate the facts.

According to the financial investment industry on the 10th, the FSS sent official letters to securities firms and asset management companies on the same day, requesting them to submit by the 12th of this month the amounts sold to individuals of securitized bonds (ABSTB - Asset-Backed Short-Term Bonds) issued based on Homeplus-related CP, electronic short-term bonds, and card payment receivables.

Excluding financial company debts and lease liabilities, Homeplus’s financial bonds consist of approximately 400 billion KRW of ABSTB issued based on card payment receivables, about 200 billion KRW of CP and electronic short-term bonds, totaling around 600 billion KRW. Most of these volumes are estimated to have been sold at retail to ordinary individuals and corporations rather than large institutional investors.

Accordingly, there are even speculations that if securities firms and other sellers did not properly explain Homeplus’s credit rating risks to individual investors, it could lead to issues of incomplete sales.

An FSS official stated, "It is not currently a situation where incomplete sales can be presumed," adding, "Since individual losses are expected, we requested data to understand the current status."