Two plants in Northern Ireland, which between them employ 1,000 people, are among those being sold off by Korean group Daewoo as part of a major worldwide restructuring.
Daewoo has agreed with creditors to dismantle itself - a watershed in Korea's economic reforms.
Daewoo Electronics, which owns the Carrickfergus, Co Antrim and Antrim town plants, is one of the divisions earmarked for sale.
Since 1989, when it arrived there, Daewoo has invested £40 million (€61 million) in Northern Ireland. The Antrim plant is one of Europe's largest producers of video recorders.
There had been fears about the Daewoo jobs in the North earlier this year when the group was negotiating a deal to transfer some of its electronics operations to another group, Samsung. In the end, the plants in the North remained under Daewoo's control.
Local management and employees will now hope that the purchasers of Daewoo Electronics will retain a commitment to Northern Ireland.
US investment fund Walid Alomar & Associates is reportedly eyeing the purchase of a controlling stake in Daewoo Electronics for $3.2 billion (€3.05 billion), while General Motors could eventually buy much of Daewoo Motors for $3.5 billion.
Daewoo's demise, which had been approaching for weeks, is seen as fostering meaningful reforms among other conglomerates, or "chaebol", which have resisted many of the government's restructuring demands following the Asian economic crisis.
"Daewoo is providing a very good example of what will happen if they don't restructure," said Mr Franklin Poon, economist with ABN Amro Asia.
Indeed, the settlement came a day after a tough speech by South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung calling for stronger reforms at Daewoo and four other top chaebol - Hyundai, Samsung, LG and SK - which he said have been slow in restructuring.
The Daewoo Group now faces the sale or disposal of 16 of its 22 companies by year-end.
Analysts say that while the collapse of Daewoo, which accounted for 17 per cent of South Korea's 1998 gross domestic product, is a jolt to the Korean economy, it probably will not trigger a domino effect of turmoil.
In addition to resolving a long-festering problem, the forced sale could give the public a clearer look at the accounting tricks South Korea's top chaebol have long been accused of using to dominate the nation's economy and target market share over profits.
In the end, South Korea's second-largest chaebol, a company once called too large to fail, ran out of time, cash and manoeuvring room. By the time Daewoo capitulated, stock markets had absorbed the inevitable. The main Korean share index fell 1.1 per cent on Monday, mainly for unrelated reasons. The index has pulled back 12 per cent from its recent high, but is still up 61 per cent for the year.
Yesterday creditors vowed to sell collateral immediately should Daewoo stall on the December 31st sales deadline.
