KG Group bought SsangYong out of receivership and relaunched it as KG Mobility

SsangYong Motor, the Korean SUV maker that had already been passed from Daewoo to China's SAIC to India's Mahindra & Mahindra, filed for court receivership on December 21, 2020 after Mahindra stopped funding it. The company said it owed 315.3 billion won (US$285 million) in overdue debt: 100 billion won to foreign lenders such as JP Morgan and 215 billion won to domestic lenders including Woori Bank and the state-run Korea Development Bank.

The first rescue fell through: electric bus maker Edison Motors was chosen in October 2021 and won court approval in January 2022, but the takeover was cancelled in March 2022 after Edison missed acquisition payments. In June 2022 the Seoul Bankruptcy Court instead picked a consortium led by KG Group, whose winning bid of KRW950 billion (US$736 million) included KRW600 billion of operating capital; the Fair Trade Commission cleared KG's 61% stake that August.

In September 2022 the court approved a rehabilitation plan built on issuing 93.31 million new shares at KRW5,000 to raise about KRW467 billion. Creditors were to receive KRW237 billion and subcontractors KRW55 billion — just under 14% of the KRW394 billion they were owed — while Mahindra got KRW7.4 billion, about 5.4% of its debt, with the remainder swapped into equity and reverse stock splits diluting its stake sharply. The court approved the receivership exit on November 11, 2022.

The relaunch was as much about identity as capital. At a shareholders' meeting on March 22, 2023, SsangYong changed its name to KG Mobility, saying it would focus on electric-vehicle platforms, software-defined vehicles, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence to survive electrification. Expansion followed: after a direct sales unit in Australia, KG Mobility opened one in Frankfurt in August 2024, where chairman Kwak Jae-sun pitched some 170 local dealers on the brand's export strategy.

The court approved the receivership exit in November 2022; creditors recovered 14% in cash, Mahindra's stake was diluted away, and the maker relaunched as KG Mobility.

Mahindra's exit ended years of underinvestment, and the court process put the company up for sale with its dealer network and production lines intact.

KG's bid carried 600 billion won of operating capital, so the rescue paid for a product pipeline rather than only clearing old claims.

The share issue paid creditors just under 14% in cash and converted the rest to equity, clearing the debt overhang instead of dragging out collections for years.

Dropping the SsangYong name in 2023 let an EV-first strategy launch free of the bankruptcy-era brand memory, and sales units in Australia and Germany rebuilt the export channel.

A dying brand can cost as much as the debt: KG paid for the factories and dealers but bought its future under a clean name — turnaround buyers purchase capabilities, not labels.

KG Mobility now pitches itself as a future-mobility company rather than a distressed SUV maker. The Frankfurt subsidiary, its second direct overseas sales operation, came with a dealer conference of about 170 German partners in August 2024 as the group rolled out new models under the KGM name. The deal became a reference point for Korea's court-led M&A: a buyer paid for capacity and channels, creditors took a fixed haircut, and the old owner exited through dilution.