A South Korean court handling the bankruptcy case of STX Offshore and Shipbuilding Co, said Tuesday that only a single bidder had submitted a binding proposal to buy the shipyard's profitable French unit. Italian shipbuilding giant Fincantieri SpA, Netherlands-based Damen Shipyards Group and French state-controlled naval shipbuilder DCNS had initially expressed interest in acquiring STX France, which specialises in building cruise ships.

"But only one bidder has met the deadline for making a binding offer," judge Choi Ung-Young, who acts as a spokesman for the court in Seoul, told AFP. He declined to identify who the bidder was, but said the proposal was being studied by Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is handling the proposed sale.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016