South Korea’s SM Group has the financial firepower to buy huge domestic shipowner HMM, its chairman says.

But Woo Oh-hyun told the Korea Economic Daily that his conglomerate would not join the bidding for the ultra-large container ship, VLCC and bulker company if the price tag went above KRW 4.5trn ($3.55bn).

“[SM Group] will immediately jump into the race for HMM once its sale is officially announced,” Woo told the newspaper.