The Homeplus rehabilitation plan cleared the court on the night of September 2, 2026. The path to liquidation was closed, but two tasks remained in place: repaying debts and finding a buyer. The repayment rate and the deadline for repayment were not within the disclosed scope.
Among the items the company must handle after the approval are a downsizing of the business centered on profitable stores and the sale of stores. The phrase "downsizing centered on profitable stores" is easy to misread. It comes closer to meaning that only stores turning a profit will be kept and the rest wound down, but how many stores are subject to the wind-down and by when it will proceed were not within the confirmed scope.
Asset sales and the normalization of supplier deliveries were also named as follow-up tasks.
Deliveries are the item that ails a retailer in rehabilitation proceedings the longest. When commercial trade claims are frozen, suppliers cut back or halt deliveries, and when shelves empty out, sales fall further. When sales fall, the funds available for repayment shrink and trading terms worsen again. The approval decision alone does not break this cycle.
The response from the labor unions came in the form of demands. The Mart Industry Union issued a statement on the day of the approval saying that a buyer capable of sustainable management must be found and the M&A completed. The union defined this approval as "a new start toward normalization," and it also put forward a demand that normalization of operations be achieved quickly. The Homeplus General Labor Union demanded that practical measures and plans to revive sales be prepared quickly, citing the "Trader Joe's" model.
An Su-yong, head of the Mart Union's Homeplus branch, said this approval had opened a chance to prevent damage to Homeplus workers, small business owners, suppliers and the local economy and to recover. He used the phrase "Homeplus's 100,000 workers." That figure appeared in remarks from the union, and whether it refers to directly employed staff or a scale that includes supplier employees and their families is not distinguished within the remarks. An also called for a responsible role from the government and the National Assembly.
If securing a buyer fails, store closures and asset sales change in character from a means of rehabilitation into a prelude to liquidation. This is the background to the union placing completion of the M&A as its first demand. The order in which procedures such as selecting a lead manager for the sale or issuing a bid notice will proceed will emerge through follow-up announcements from the company and the administrator.
A hypermarket store is real estate, a workplace and at the same time a device for drawing shoppers to the local commercial district. Three characteristics sit inside one building, so a decision to close a single store does not end as an accounting adjustment of profit and loss. Foot traffic at neighboring shops, jobs for employees of tenant suppliers and sales channels for local suppliers move along with it. The scale of the impact of this matter can be gauged depending on when the list of closure targets is disclosed.
Approval of the rehabilitation plan is a decision that bought time. If a buyer is not found and trade with suppliers is not revived within the time bought, the repayment terms in the plan will remain a promise on paper. What needs to be checked next is whether the sale procedure begins and the scale of resumed deliveries.
