Homeplus was one of Korea's biggest hypermarkets — the court just scrapped its rescue plan

Homeplus is one of South Korea's largest hypermarket chains, wholly owned by the private equity group MBK Partners, which took it private in 2015 in a landmark leveraged buyout. The debt that financed the purchase stayed on the retailer's balance sheet. A decade on, with the business shrinking faster than the debt could be paid down, the balance sheet won.

In March 2025 Homeplus filed for court-supervised corporate rehabilitation — Korea's version of Chapter 11. The plan centred on keeping 67 core stores and finding new money. On 3 July 2026 the Seoul Bankruptcy Court scrapped the process: the judges found no concrete funding plan for the several hundred million dollars the restructuring needed, and no buyer had come forward. The chain was pushed toward bankruptcy proceedings instead.

The case is a textbook private-equity reckoning: the buyout's debt was serviced by the company's cash while the company itself needed investment it could not afford. A court will extend time for a restructuring that has a credible path to funding; it will not extend time for one that does not. Homeplus's creditors now face the answer the filing was meant to postpone — what the stores are worth without the brand's borrowing capacity behind them.