At 9:30 a.m. on the 13th, the Homeplus Mega Food Market Live store in Seoul's Gangseo district reopened its doors. Homeplus, which had suspended operations on the 13th of last month after running out of working capital, resumed business at the store 31 days later. Within 30 minutes of opening, the store was packed with customers pushing carts.
The busiest spot was the "half-price beef" section. Korean beef sold out quickly, and a steady stream of shoppers turned to discounted imported products instead. Store-brand red bean bread, marked down 50%, was snapped up two or three loaves at a time as soon as it hit the shelves. Long lines formed at the checkout counters. A resident of the Gayang neighborhood, who had been waiting before the store opened, said: "I was disappointed when both the Gayang store and the Gangseo store closed, so when I heard there would be a discount event, I came out early."
In one corner of the store, a tenant merchant cleaned equipment and refrigerators that had gone unused over the past month, getting ready to trade again. "I'm owed more than six months' worth of payments, but Homeplus contacted me saying it would pay 30% to 40% of the overdue amount within two or three days," the merchant said. "Since I can get at least part of it and customers are coming in, I'm going to try running the business again."
Homeplus reopened 67 stores nationwide on the same day after securing 200 billion won ($144 million) in emergency debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from Meritz Financial Group. It plans to channel the funds into product supply and operating costs to restore its delivery network, and to run its stores around food, store-brand goods and daily necessities. The Democratic Party's Eulji-ro Committee and the retail workers' union also visited the Gangseo store that day to encourage shoppers to use it.
Although operations have resumed, whether Homeplus can be rescued is expected to be decided early next month. The Seoul Bankruptcy Court set Sept. 2 as the date for a creditors' meeting to review and vote on the revised version of Homeplus's rehabilitation plan. That falls two days before Sept. 4, the deadline for the plan to be approved. Homeplus submitted its second revised rehabilitation plan to the court the previous day.
