SK Chemicals shares soar on AstraZeneca deal

Shares of SK Chemicals soared sharply Friday, a day after the chemicals and drug developer announced that it signed a contract manufacturing deal for British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company AstraZeneca’s diabetes medicines. Its shares started at 79,800 won ($62.27) as of 9 a.m., a 23 percent jump from the previous trading day. In the afternoon, the stocks were traded slightly lower at 72,200 won, still up around 11 percent from a day ago. In its regulatory fi

July 21, 2023

HMM put up for sale for 'at least' W5tr

The state-run Korea Development Bank and Korea Ocean Business Corp., the two largest shareholders of debt-ridden shipping company HMM, are seeking to sell their shares for at least 5 trillion won ($3.9 billion), according to industry sources Friday. The two organizations said they are selling a combined 40.65 percent controlling stake in HMM, together with perpetual convertible bonds worth 2.68 trillion won. A perpetual bond has no maturity date and can be converted into equity. From 2018 to 2

July 21, 2023

Museum for late Samsung chief’s art collection gets regulatory approval

A new art museum featuring some 23,000 artworks collected by the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee is expected to be built in central Seoul in 2028 after getting regulatory approval Thursday. The museum was one of the six construction projects whose feasibility reviews gained approval from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Following his death in 2020, his family donated a total of 23,181 art pieces previously owned by Lee. The collection includes various masterpieces by renowned Korean

July 21, 2023

EcoPro highly likely to make MSCI index in August: analysts

South Korean battery materials company EcoPro, the red-hot stock in the nation’s secondary tech-laden Kosdaq, is highly likely to be included in the MSCI Korea Index in August, Samsung Securities wrote in a recent report published Friday. EcoPro is a holdings firm with units EcoPro BM and EcoPro HN under its wings. Running high on the recent electric vehicle boom, the cathode materials maker saw its shares soar to a record high of 1.14 million ($890.28) Wednesday, almost a 10-fold jump fro

July 21, 2023

S. Korea, Bahrain discuss cooperation on trade, investment

South Korea's trade chief met with Bahrain's top envoy in Seoul on Friday for talks on ways to boost bilateral trade and investment, the trade ministry said. Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun met with Bahrain's Ambassador to South Korea Mohamed Ghassan Mohamed Adnan Shaikho and discussed how to enhance two-way trade and industry relations, as well as a free trade agreement between South Korea and the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Nego

July 21, 2023

Public Procurement Service supports suppliers for overseas expansion

South Korea’s government procurement agency said Friday it is ramping up support for local companies to accelerate their expansion into overseas markets and boost the nation’s exports overall. Affiliated with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Public Procurement Service oversees and manages contracts of goods, services and construction to facilitate the procurement and supply of goods for the public sector. PPS Administrator Kim Yoon-sang also renewed the agency’s commitm

July 21, 2023

S. Korea to offer tax, financial support to victims of downpour

South Korea will provide all available tax and financial support to the victims of the recent downpour, the finance minister said Friday, while focusing on preventing its impact on consumer prices of agricultural goods. The move came as the recent heavy rains in the central region damaged 34,583 hectares of farmland while killing 825,000 livestock, including 769,1000 chickens as of Thursday. "The government will concentrate all policy efforts in terms of budget, tax and finance to support t

July 21, 2023

Seoul shares open lower on US rate hike woes

South Korean stocks started lower Friday as investors took a cautious stance amid strong US jobs data. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 24.37 points, or 0.94 percent, to 2,575.86 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.47 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.05 percent. The latest US Labor Department data showed that weekly jobless claims fell again last week, suggesting the Federal Reserve wi

July 21, 2023

S. Korea to speed up digitalization of service sector

South Korea's finance ministry said Friday the country will speed up efforts to adopt digital technologies in the service sector, with the goal of enhancing its competitiveness and bringing convenience to everyday life. The latest move comes in line with efforts to apply the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence, to various areas ranging from logistics and finance to public administration, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. "So far, the limited utilizati

July 21, 2023

[Herald Interview] Urbanbase seeks overseas expansion with AI-based home furnishing technology

Furnishing a home is a strenuous venture, as performing a holistic analysis of measurements for a slew of necessities such as furniture, floor area and structure of a building, can be costly and tough to pull off for everyday consumers with little knowledge in architecture. Urbanbase, a startup specializing in providing three-dimensional spatial data and artificial intelligence-supported styling services for home refurbishment, is one of the first companies in South Korea that attempted to simpl

July 20, 2023

KB Financial embarks on CEO selection process

  KB Financial Group on Thursday announced the details of its candidate selection process for a new chairman ahead of the upcoming shareholders’ meeting, set to take place in November. The group's Chairman Candidate Recommendation Committee held its first meeting on Thursday and decided on the procedure to shortlist candidates. On Aug. 8, the committee plans to draw up a shortlist of six candidates, and on Aug. 29, it will conduct the first round of interviews and narrow down the sh

July 20, 2023

Upstage’s LLM tops global open-source AI evaluation

South Korea’s artificial intelligence startup Upstage said Thursday it has secured the top position in the global evaluation of large language models. The company’s 30-billion-parameter LLM scored 67 points, ahead of Meta’s LLaMa-2 (66.8 points) on the Open LLM Leaderboard operated by the AI platform, Hugging Face, as of Wednesday. Hugging Face’s leaderboard evaluates LLMs with less than 100 billion parameters on four key indicators: model’s reasoning challenge,

July 20, 2023

FTC levies W41b price-fixing fine on Korean vaccine makers

South Korea's antitrust regulator on Thursday announced it has decided to assess 40.9 billion won ($32.3 million) of fines for 32 pharmaceutical firms and wholesalers for colluding to secure orders for the government’s vaccine procurement bids. The 32 companies included global pharmaceutical firm GSK, GC Biopharma, Yuhan, Boryung and SK Discovery, which has SK Plasma and SK Bioscience as subsidiaries. Under the the Fair Trade Commission's decision, Korea Vaccine Sales will receiv

July 20, 2023

Seoul shares end lower amid rate hike worries

Seoul shares ended lower Thursday, bucking gains on Wall Street, as investors remain cautious on whether the US Federal Reserve will raise rates further to tame inflation. The South Korean won fell against the dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 8.01 points, or 0.31 percent, to close at 2,600.23. Trading volume was moderate at 362.59 million shares worth 9.3 trillion won ($7.3 billion), with gainers outpacing decliners 446 to 417. Institutions sold a net 319 billion won

July 20, 2023

Starbucks, Blackpink collaboration to hit 9 Asian countries

Starbucks is collaborating with the world's biggest girl group Blackpink this summer. Starbucks Korea on Thursday announced that the brand has teamed up with Blackpink to release limited edition merchandise, beverage and food items this summer. The latest collaboration project will be launched in the Asia-Pacific region, with the drinks and merchandise items available in nine regions in Asia, including South Korea and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, bakery menu items will only be sold in South Korea.

July 20, 2023

SK Square closes W860b stake sale of SK Shieldus

SK Square, the investment arm of SK Group, has completed the process of selling a portion of its stake in its security service subsidiary SK Shieldus to EQT Partners, a private equity fund operated by Sweden's largest conglomerate, the Wallenberg Group, a filing showed Thursday. SK Square said it has sold 28.82 percent of its stake in Korea Security Holdings, the parent firm of SK Shieldus, for about 860 billion won ($684 million). EQT Partners acquired a 36.9 percent stake in SK Square and

July 20, 2023

Hyundai Motor unveils nanotechnology vision

Hyundai Motor Group said Thursday it has developed six kinds of nanotechnologies that will be key drivers of growth in future mobility, ranging from autonomous driving cars to software defined vehicles. Nanotechnology creates new materials by synthesizing or fabricate arrays of materials that are 1 billionth of a meter in width. “Only when we secure top level materials technology in mobility can we improve the performance and durability of car parts and vehicles which will offer a competit

July 20, 2023

Conglomerates team up to support rain victims

South Korea’s leading conglomerates and business groups have donated 19 billion won ($15 million) as part of relief and recovery efforts for the victims of the recent monsoon rains which caused flooding and landslides in many parts of the country. Korea's four largest groups, Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG, led the charge Thursday in raising financial support for those most affected by the downpours with a combined donation of 10 billion won. Samsung Group announced a 3-billion-won

July 20, 2023

Georgia road renamed 'SK Boulevard' in nod to economic boost

The “SK Boulevard” debuted in Jackson Country in the US state of Georgia on Wednesday, replacing the former Steve Reynolds Industrial Parkway in recognition of the contributions of SK Battery America to the local economy, SK On, the battery making unit of SK Group said Thursday. The announcement was made at a signage ceremony at SKBA's Georgia facility attended by key local figures including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Commerce City Mayor Clark Hill, and Jackson County Chamber of C

July 20, 2023

Young Koreans favor iPhones over Samsung Galaxy: survey

In South Korea, 69 percent of adult smartphone users use a Samsung device, while only 23 percent use iPhones, a Gallup survey of 1,001 adults found. But the survey reveals a starkly different trend in one demographic: younger millennials and Gen Z. Among the younger generation, aged 18 to 29, iPhone’s share rises to 65 percent, double the Samsung's 32 percent, the survey found. This represents a 13 percent increase in iPhone use from last year and stands in sharp contrast to older coh

July 20, 2023