**Investigation of Corporate Evaluation Chief… HanShin Credit Rating Office Raided Two Days Ago**
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kwon Hee-won = Prosecutors investigating the ‘Homeplus Short-term Bonds Incident’ have summoned a corporate evaluation officer from Korea Credit Ratings for questioning.
According to the legal community on the 14th, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 3 (headed by Prosecutor Lee Seung-hak) summoned Mr. Kim, the head of corporate evaluation at Korea Credit Ratings, as a reference witness for questioning this morning.
Prosecutors are likely to confirm when Korea Credit Ratings warned Homeplus about the possibility of a credit rating downgrade in advance.
On the 12th, prosecutors sped up the investigation by conducting a search and seizure at the offices of Korea Ratings and Korea Credit Ratings in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.
Prosecutors suspect that the management of Homeplus and MBK Partners were aware of the impending credit rating downgrade and planned to file for corporate rehabilitation but concealed this and issued short-term bonds.
On February 28, Korea Credit Ratings announced that it was downgrading the corporate paper and short-term bond credit rating of Homeplus from ‘A3’ to ‘A3-‘. Subsequently, Homeplus filed for a corporate rehabilitation procedure (court receivership) at the Seoul Rehabilitation Court on March 4, just four days later.
Prosecutors are focusing on the possibility that Homeplus and MBK Partners knew about the first notification of the credit rating downgrade before February 25 and issued bonds to shift losses onto investors.