Hypermarket chain operator Homeplus has filed for corporate rehabilitation. 

The retailer said it filed for the remedial measure with the Seoul Bankruptcy Court on Tuesday to preemptively deal with potential financial issues brought on by a drop in its credit rating.  

The firm said its rating saw a downgrade in a credit assessment report released Friday after the report failed to sufficiently reflect a rise in sales, both online and offline, or an improvement in its debt-to-equity ratio. 

The retailer said its debt-to-equity ratio stood at 462 percent as of January 31, marking an improvement of one-thousand-506 percent compared with a year earlier, while sales for the past 12 months posted growth of two-point-eight percent on-year to some seven-point-four trillion won, or around five billion U.S. dollars. 

Homeplus said it decided to file for corporate rehabilitation to reduce the burden of short-term funding, as problems could emerge in such funding due to the downgraded credit rating. 

The company said its hypermarkets, its online shopping service and the supermarket chain Homeplus Express will continue to operate normally.