The Korean shipowner will sell the seven wholly owned ships and part shares in two others to IMM Investment for KRW 1.1 trillion ($1.03bn), it confirmed in a statement today.

When the deal goes through in the next few months, HMM will have raised a third of the KRW 3.3 trillion it had been targeting from asset sales.

The company has been under pressure to cut costs following two straight years of losses.

HMM’s fully owned LNG fleet ranges in size between 125,000-cbm and 150,000-cbm all of which are on long-term charters to Korea Gas.

Shares rallied by as much as 12% following the announcement but ended the day up by over 8% at KRW 14,850 each.