三星电子与SK海力士拒绝韩国电力公社约25万亿韩元、覆盖五年电费的预付方案

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) have rejected a proposal from Korea Electric Power Corp. to prepay a combined 25 trillion won ($18 billion) in electricity charges covering five years.
KEPCO had offered the arrangement to accelerate expansion of the power grid needed by the semiconductor industry, but the two chipmakers concluded that committing tens of trillions of won at once would be difficult given the outlook for the market and their investment plans.
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix reviewed the prepayment proposal internally, decided against accepting it and conveyed that decision to KEPCO, industry sources said on the 14th.
"It is true that Samsung Electronics and SK hynix communicated their refusal of our proposal," a KEPCO official said.
KEPCO recently proposed that Samsung Electronics prepay about 20 trillion won and SK hynix about 5 trillion won in electricity charges. Each amount corresponds to roughly five years of power bills based on what the companies paid last year.
The utility planned to channel the prepaid charges first into expanding the national backbone power grid. That would allow it to move up investment in transmission and substation networks in areas expected to see large power demand, including the Yongin semiconductor cluster, where chip plants are concentrated.
KEPCO also offered incentives to ease the financial burden on the companies. It would apply an interest rate above the yield on two-year treasury bonds to the prepayments, then deduct principal and interest from electricity bills due every six months. In effect, the chipmakers would lend long-term funds to KEPCO and recover them through future power charges.
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix agreed with the aim of accelerating power infrastructure but judged that paying five years of costs at once would be too heavy a burden, according to sources. Earnings and cash generation at both companies have improved sharply on strong memory demand, but the volatility of the chip industry makes it hard to assume the current upturn will last another five years.
KEPCO needs to secure funding for large-scale grid investment. Its total debt stood at 210.7 trillion won as of the end of June this year, with daily interest costs of about 11.5 billion won. A government waiver that raised the ceiling on KEPCO bond issuance to as much as five times the sum of its capital and reserves, from two times previously, is also set to expire at the end of next year.
"KEPCO expected that securing prepayments from Samsung Electronics and SK hynix would let it cut additional corporate bond issuance while funding grid construction, but the refusals leave it having to look for new funding options," an industry official said.