[Edaily Marketin Hur Jieun Reporter] Homeplus, which has drawn up a plan to raise 200 billion won in emergency operating funds (DIP), is filing an immediate appeal with the court. Although the company has barely managed to keep its restructuring efforts alive, a rough road lies ahead before restructuring can actually resume and operations return to normal. Legal experts estimate that it will take an additional one to two weeks from the filing of the appeal to the court’s declaration revoking the termination of the rehabilitation proceedings. The resumption of operations, including the restocking of goods, is expected to take place after that.

According to legal and investment banking (IB) industry sources on the 20th, Homeplus plans to file an immediate appeal with the Seoul Bankruptcy Court this afternoon. The filing is expected to include board resolutions from the three Meritz Financial Group companies—Meritz Securities, Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, and Meritz Capital—as well as a joint guarantee agreement from major shareholder MBK Partners.

The first step following the immediate appeal is the court’s review of the motion for reconsideration. “Reconsideration” is a procedure whereby, when an immediate appeal is filed, the original court (the court that issued the previous decision) may, upon recognizing the validity of the grounds for appeal, voluntarily revoke or modify its own decision. When the court decided on the 3rd to suspend Homeplus’s rehabilitation proceedings, it left open the possibility of resuming the proceedings by stating that reconsideration would be possible if an immediate appeal were filed within 14 days.

Given that the court’s primary reason for terminating the reorganization proceedings was uncertainty regarding funding, the grounds for termination have effectively been resolved now that a concrete funding plan totaling 200 billion won has been substantiated. Accordingly, the court is expected to swiftly review the documents and move toward revoking the termination decision on its own initiative.

Concurrently with the review of the appeal, the court is expected to complete the approval process for Meritz Financial’s DIP financing by the end of this week. Since DIP financing involves a company undergoing rehabilitation incurring large-scale debt, prior court approval is mandatory. If the court approves the execution of Meritz’s DIP financing, the 200 billion won that Meritz Financial had held in an escrow account will finally be transferred to Homeplus’s corporate account.

Once it is confirmed that the funds have been fully transferred to Homeplus, the court is expected to finally officially revoke its decision to terminate the reorganization proceedings and declare the resumption of the reorganization. This is estimated to occur between the third and fourth weeks of this month. Given that the remaining term of the reorganization is expected to end in September, it is highly likely that the court will make a swift decision to normalize business operations.

Only after this stage is completed will the notice of suspension of rehabilitation proceedings issued by the court on the 3rd lose its full effect. This means Homeplus will fully regain the legal status required to proceed with the normal rehabilitation process as a company under court receivership, including negotiating a rehabilitation plan and selling off its remaining business divisions.

The final stage is the normalization of operations, which involves restarting business activities that had been suspended using the 200 billion won in injected funds. Even with this capital infusion, the large-scale hypermarkets that have been temporarily closed since the 13th cannot reopen immediately the following day. This is because the company must first finalize negotiations with suppliers—whose deliveries were suspended during the closure—to settle outstanding payments for goods, and restock shelves after reorganizing its logistics operations.

Considering the time required for these processes, operations are expected to return to normal starting in August. A Homeplus official stated, “As soon as the court issues its decision to extend and resume the rehabilitation proceedings, we will communicate closely with our suppliers to establish a specific schedule for resuming operations,” adding, “We will prioritize allocating the secured funds toward restoring normal operations to rebuild trust.”