HANJIN Shipping, South Korea's largest shipping line, yesterday confirmed the Won322.3bn ($352m) sale of its container terminals in Taiwan and Japan to Hanjin Pacific under a plan first announced last September.

Hanjin Pacific was set up as a 60-40 joint venture by Hanjin Shipping and Macquarie Korea Opportunities Fund.

Ownership of the terminals will transfer to the new outfit although Hanjin Shipping will retain management control. The agreement covers terminals at Kaohsiung, Tokyo and Osaka.

Insiders said the deal allowed Hanjin Shipping to leverage the value of its terminals without relinquishing management control. Hanjin Ship-ping Kaohsiung Container Terminal operates the T-78 facility that covers 190,432 sq m and has capacity to handle 600,000 teu a year through a single 320 m berth.

In Japan, Hanjin controls the Aomi A-3 terminal in Tokyo, which handled about 350,000 teu last year, together with the Osaka OC-1 terminal which reported an increase in throughput to 200,000 teu last year.

Under the agreement with the Macquarie fund last September, Hanjin Shipping agreed to sell six terminals in the US, Japan and Taiwan to two jointly controlled entities, one of which is Hanjin Pacific.

Details of the US pact have still to be finalised but they cover terminals in Long Beach, Seattle and Oakland.

Hanjin's terminals in South Korea at Gamcheon, Gamman at Pusan, Gwangyang International Container Terminal and Pyongtaek are unaffected. Hanjin Shipping is also developing part of the second phase of Pusan New Port after agreeing a concession early this year with the port authority to develop new berths.

In October the Macquarie Korea Infra Fund linked with seven other companies including CMA CGM, Zim Ports and Terminals, Hyundai Development and Korea Marine Transport to spend about $550m building four berths at Pusan New Port. The four common-user berths, with a total capacity of 1.8m teu, are due to be completed by 2011.