SEOUL: The Korea Customs Service (KCS) will be under the spotlight again this weekend after making its final bid evaluation to award four downtown duty free licenses – including the world’s highest selling downtown duty free shop, plus two other downtown Seoul concessions and one Busan downtown store here the other day.
According to a well-documented earlier KCS announcement, the new license winners will be announced on Saturday evening (Seoul-time) – a development that is expected to generate wide prime time media coverage.
A very well informed senior duty free industry source told TRBusiness today: “The evaluation committee has mustered at the KCS Education Centre in Chungnam.
“They will evaluate each license application today, then the bidders will make presentations tomorrow and KCS will announce the results Saturday evening.
“There is likely to be a televised announcement, as many people are concerned about the tender result.”
As the process stands today, KCS has received 10 bids for the three downtown concessions on offer in Seoul, while the single Busan downtown license has attracted two bids.
As reported already, the four downtown concessions on offer are: Lotte Duty Free’s flagship Sogong store and Lotte World Tower licenses in Seoul, SK Group’s Walkerhill Seoul store license, and the Shinsegae Duty Free Busan license.
Although the existing operators are widely expected to retain their current duty free licenses, this round of duty free license awards has attracted wide public interest. This is due to both the high-profile companies bidding and the alleged fraudulent conduct surrounding duty free licensing.
This is said to have taken place during KCS’ recent tendering of four new downtown duty free licenses in Seoul and Jeju.
A number of individuals are now suspected of insider trading and under investigation after information was allegedly leaked from within KCS.
Accusations were made after a large number of Hanwha Galleria shares were acquired immediately prior to the tender award announcement, so causing a leap in Hanwha’s share price when the company was awarded one of the new Seoul downtown licenses.
“Fraud cases are still under investigation regarding Hanwha Galleria shares. It is suspected some people got a big increase in their share price,” said the source.
“Because of this controversy, the bid evaluation for the current tenders is being held on Friday [i.e. today Ed] and the announcement made on Saturday [when the Seoul Stock Exchange is closed] to avoid any leakage of the result or rumours.”
