[Exclusive] Homeplus sent to prosecutors

[Anchor]

The financial authorities have today (Apr. 21) referred Homeplus and its major shareholder MBK's management to the prosecution.

They believe there is a strong suspicion that they deceived customers and sold bonds despite being aware of the risk of a credit rating downgrade.

Reporter Song Su-jin has the exclusive coverage.

[Report]

About two weeks before Homeplus's credit rating fell, on February 13 and 14, Homeplus met with the two major credit rating agencies in succession.

During this meeting, the credit rating agency stated to Homeplus that there was a high downward pressure on its credit rating, according to testimonies to the financial authorities.

[Kim Ki-beom/CEO of Korea Ratings/Mar. 18: "From our perspective, it seems that Homeplus could predict this internally."]

After this meeting, Homeplus continued to sell bonds, and even three days before the credit rating downgrade, on February 25, it sold bonds worth over 80 billion won.

Homeplus maintained that it did not anticipate the credit rating downgrade when selling the bonds, but the financial authorities found this claim to be unconvincing.

A senior official from the financial authorities revealed that they also identified circumstances indicating that Homeplus was preparing for rehabilitation procedures at the time it was selling the bonds.

The case has been referred to the prosecution under the 'fast track' applicable to incidents with significant social repercussions.

Under the Capital Markets Act, it is suspected of fraudulent trading.

They applied the charge of selling financial products with false information or omissions of important facts in documents.

Since the prosecution began its investigation based on a complaint from a securities firm earlier this month, they may soon proceed with compulsory investigations.

Homeplus and MBK have stated that they have no further comments to disclose.

This is KBS News, Song Su-jin.