The Financial Supervisory Service classified 34 of the country’s business groups as heavily indebted for this year.

The groups, including Hyundai Motor Group and Samsung Group, will be put under scrutiny by their respective creditor banks.

Creditor banks are required to evaluate the financial status of the 34 business groups and seek restructuring if they fail to meet certain requirements, the FSS said in a statement.

The five most-indebted business groups are Hyundai Motor, Samsung, SK, LG and Hyundai Heavy Industries, according to the financial regulator.

Other major groups, such as POSCO, Doosan, GS, Hanjin and Lotte, were also included in the top 10 list.

Under the current supervisory guidelines, a business group whose unsecured debts surpass 0.1 percent of total borrowing from the financial sector is classified as a major debtor.

“Those groups will be placed under close monitoring by their main creditor bank,” an FSS official said.

State-owned Woori Bank will take on the monitoring of 13 groups including Samsung, LG and Doosan. State-run Korea Development Bank will be in charge of eight groups such as Hanjin and Kumho Asiana.

Four groups such as SK and GS will be under the watch of Hana Bank. Four groups including Lotte will be evaluated by Shinhan Bank.

Korea Exchange Bank will deal with Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Heavy Industries, while KB Kookmin Bank will take on Shinsegae and KT.

Financial firms’ lending to the 34 industrial groups came to 267.2 trillion won ($234.3 billion), accounting for 16.5 percent of their total loans.

Out of the 267.2 trillion won, loans to the top five groups reached 113 trillion won, the FSS said.

Hyundai Motor, Samsung and SK maintained the top three debtor group ranking following the 2011 list.

Lotte was newly included in the top 10 list while Kumho Asiana’s debt ranking dropped from 9th to 13th.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)