SEOUL, Jan 30 (Reuters) – South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, the world’s biggest shipbuilder, is interested in buying a stake in second-ranked rival Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, a Hyundai official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The comments follow the group’s holding firm saying on Monday it planned to sell part of its stake in refiner Hyundai Oilbank to Saudi Aramco for as much as 1.8 trillion won.

State-funded Korea Development Bank (KDB) holds a 55.7 percent stake worth 2.16 trillion won ($1.94 billion) as of Wednesday’s closing price in Daewoo.

“Hyundai Heavy held talks to buy the Daewoo stake,” the official said, without elaborating further.

South Korea’s online media Yonhap Infomax said Hyundai Heavy submitted a letter of intent to the KDB to buy a stake in Daewoo, citing the government.

A KDB spokesman declined to comment.

In 2017, Daewoo Shipbuilding received a $2.6 billion bank bailout, after having being hit by the impact of historically low oil prices, which caused delays in payments for complex offshore facilities.

The KDB has said it intends to sell its stake in Daewoo and consolidate the biggest three domestic shipbuilders, which includes Samsung Heavy Industries, into two. ($1 = 1,116.2000 won) (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and David Evans)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.