Meritz, which had long balked at the retailer's loan requests, signaled a day earlier that it could lend up to 100 billion won — the amount jointly guaranteed by Homeplus' private equity owner MBK Partners.
"If only 100 billion won, half the required amount, is provided, we cannot complete the store closures currently under way, and resuming product supply will also become difficult," Homeplus said in a statement.
The company said securing the full amount would allow it to streamline stores, normalize product supply and restore supplier confidence, laying the groundwork to implement its rehabilitation plan.
Time is running short. The deadline for creditors to approve the rehabilitation plan is July 3, and even with a one-time extension, proceedings must conclude before Sept. 3.
The plea comes after Homeplus permanently closed 37 underperforming outlets — about a third of its 104 hypermarkets — that had been suspended since May 10, a move that put about 3,500 jobs at risk.
Homeplus has been bleeding cash since filing for court receivership in March last year, the first of South Korea's big three hypermarket operators to do so. Even the roughly 120 billion won expected from the sale of Homeplus Express to a Harim Group affiliate is dwarfed by supplier arrears estimated at about 200 billion won.
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