Creditors of Korea Express Co. have accepted preliminary bids from three local conglomerates, including steel giant POSCO, to buy Korea‘s largest logistics firm, sources said Monday. Co-sales managers Nomura Securities and the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) accepted letters of intent in early March from POSCO, retail giant Lotte Group and leading food conglomerate CJ Group to buy a 37.6 pe

Seniors to make up 38% of populationResearch forecast Monday that Korea will become the world’s most aged society by 2050, raising an urgent need to prepare a safety net for the elderly and cope with a shrinking labor force.People aged 65 or older are predicted to make up 38.2 percent of Korea’s total population in 2050, according to the report by the Korea Institute of Finance, more than tripled

The Fair Trade Commission said Monday it is looking into whether Homeplus broke the law with an allegedly misleading advertisement for discount LED monitors sold at its stores last week.Homeplus, the country’s No. 2 retail chain, was offering the LED monitors for as low as 199,000 won ($178.56) at its 122 stores nationwide. Some buyers, however, were angry to discover that the monitors were not eq

The state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency said Monday that it will start assisting local firm’ overseas marketing through online social media. The trade body’s latest move comes as the world’s e-commerce market has been growing rapidly in recent years to reach a size of $9 trillion as of last year, KOTRA said.KOTRA will promote local information technology companies through social netw

Samsung LED Co. on Monday said that it has agreed with Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Co. to form a joint venture to produce sapphire wafers that are necessary components of light-emitting diode, a semiconductor light source.The LED manufacturer said the 50-50 venture will be capitalized at 80 billion won ($72 million), with production of sapphire ingots and wafers scheduled to begin early next year.Th

Sony Ericsson on Monday said it will be releasing its new smartphone, “Xperia Arc” in South Korea next month through SK Telecom. South Korea will be the second nation to see the launch of Xperia Arc, following the firm’s home turf of Japan.“We want Xperia Arc to be known not only for its design, but as a phone defining new smartphone standards,” said Han Youn-hee, head of the firm’s South Korean m

Porsche SE, the sports-car maker that plans to merge with Volkswagen AG, will start 5 billion euros ($7 billion) share sale March 30 to reduce debt. The carmaker’s supervisory and executive boards signed off on the plan to sell shares at 38 euros apiece to current owners, Stuttgart, Germany-based Porsche said in a statement late Sunday. One existing share carries the right to subscribe to 0.75 new

Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu is facing calls to quit after the crisis at the utility’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant capped a tenure that has seen $26 billion wiped off the company’s market value. The share price decline since Shimizu took charge in June 2008 at Tepco, as the company is known, has deepened to 67 percent in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster, as of the

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, will cut costs and accelerate its expansion overseas as government controls prevent the company from passing on higher crude-oil prices to customers.Profit rose 14 percent to a record 71.8 billion yuan ($11 billion) last year, the company known as Sinopec said Sunday. Net income missed analysts’ estimates and trailed Cnooc Ltd.’s 85 percent