LS Cable & System makes W25.2b equity investment in KT Submarine

LS Cable & System, LS Group’s cable manufacturing unit, said Tuesday it would make a 25.2 billion won ($17.58 million) equity investment in KT Submarine to foster its undersea cables business. The company will acquire 4.04 million stocks, 16 percent of KT Submarine’s share, becoming the second-largest shareholder of KT Submarine. The cable manufacturer has been expanding investment in undersea cables amid a rapidly growing demand for offshore wind power generation, which requires

Oct. 11, 2022

Seoul shares tumble 1.83% amid tightening woes, geopolitical risks

South Korean stocks tumbled nearly 2 percent on Tuesday as investors sold off tech, auto and other stocks amid concerns that monetary tightening and geopolitical risks could tip the global economy into a recession. The Korean won also ended sharply lower against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) lost 40.77 points, or 1.83 percent, to end at 2,192.07. Trading volume was moderate at 846.31 million shares worth 7.75 trillion won ($5.42 billion), with losers far

Oct. 11, 2022

BAT says Glo contains less toxicants

A study has found that heated tobacco product Glo contained less toxicants than traditional cigarettes, and could help reduce potential harm of smoking-related diseases, the Seoul branch of its manufacturer BAT Group said Tuesday. “Our recent one-year clinical trial found that our flagship heated tobacco product Glo showed 90-95 percent less toxicants contained in aerosol compared to cigarette smoke,” said Sharon Goodall, head of Regulatory Science at BAT Group, during a press conf

Oct. 11, 2022

Watchdog vows to complete inspection of troubled funds by next year

The head of South Korea’s financial watchdog pledged Tuesday that he will complete an inspection into the troubled funds and products that led to investors suffering hefty losses in recent years. The vow follows public criticism that the Financial Supervisory Service failed to screen and prevent fiascos including Ponzi schemes carried out by hedge funds and local financial institutions in recent years. The FSS has yet to decide on the reimbursement plans regarding the troubled 2019 German

Oct. 11, 2022

LS Group discusses business with Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors

LS Group said its Chairman Koo Ja-eun discussed business cooperation on Tuesday with the ambassadors of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- five of the six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The GCC is a regional, intergovernmental, political and economic union of the above countries plus Bahrain, which does not have an embassy in South Korea. Set up in 1981 for economic and security cooperation, the GCC is seeking to expand business beyond crude oil

Oct. 11, 2022

Posco unveils W1.5tr plan to speed up lithium production

Posco Holdings, the holding firm of steelmaking conglomerate Posco Group, on Tuesday announced a 1.5 trillion won ($1 billion) investment plan to speed up its lithium production both in Argentina and South Korea. The company said it had planned to make the investment next year but decided to advance the timeline in order to meet the growing demand for lithium, a key material for electric vehicle batteries. With the new investment, the company plans to break ground for a lithium carbonate plant i

Oct. 11, 2022

SK Siltron, UK-based IQE to develop semiconductor wafers for 5G, auto chips

South Korean semiconductor wafer maker SK Siltron and Britain-based chip material firm IQE has inked a strategic collaboration agreement to develop next-generation compound semiconductor products targeting the Asian market, SK Siltron said Tuesday. Under the agreement signed Thursday, the two companies will work to develop epitaxial wafers based on gallium nitride using IQE's technology, with wafer substrates made of silicon and silicon carbide supplied by SK Siltron. Gallium nitride can he

Oct. 11, 2022

Lotte signs W2.7tr deal to acquire Iljin Materials

South Korean business conglomerate Lotte Group has signed a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Iljin Materials, a copper foil supplier to electric vehicle battery makers for 2.7 trillion won ($1.9 billion), in Lotte's move to enhance the EV component portfolio, filings showed Tuesday. Lotte Battery Materials USA, a subsidiary of Lotte's petrochemical arm Lotte Chemical, will buy a 53.3 percent stake, or 24.6 million ordinary shares, in the world's fourth-largest copper foil ma

Oct. 11, 2022

Samsung vows W7.5tr investment in Biologics over next 10 years

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Tuesday visited Samsung Biologics, a contract manufacturing and development organization under the Samsung empire, in Songdo, west of Seoul, vowing to invest 7.5 trillion won ($5.2 billion) through 2032 to solidify the biotechnology unit's leading position in the worldwide CDMO industry.  The investment is about building four more biomanufacturing plants at the second Biocampus, the company said, adding that it has begun the partial operati

Oct. 11, 2022

Blind: App that has everyone in the workplace talking

Blind, a workplace community app, has been a source of some of the biggest company news stories and viral social media posts globally. They range from the Korean Air “nut rage” incident and the 2017 sexual harassment allegations at Uber to the controversy at US food delivery platform DoorDash over an initiative that requires all employees to make one food delivery every month, to name a few. One of the latest corporate news stories to come out of the anonymous user-based platform for

Oct. 11, 2022

[From the Scene] SK to build W1.7tr plastic recycling complex by 2025

ULSAN -- SK Innovation, petrochemical arm of South Korea's second-largest business conglomerate, is poised to open a 1.7 trillion-won ($1.19 billion) plastic recycling complex by the second half of 2025, a move to accelerate its transformation to becoming a provider of ecofriendly products for a sustainable future. The 215,000-square-meter space in Korea's heavy industry powerhouse Ulsan will house facilities that would collect 250,000 tons of waste plastic each year and recycle about 80-90 per

Oct. 11, 2022

S. Korean officials, businesses discuss joint responses to US EV tax law

South Korean officials held a meeting with domestic car and battery makers Tuesday to discuss responses to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as Washington sought public input on its implementation amid concerns over its discriminatory features, the industry ministry said. The IRA, signed by US President Joe Biden in August, excludes electric vehicles assembled outside of North America from tax incentives, sparking concerns that Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. will lose ground in the US market a

Oct. 11, 2022

Customs agency detects W256.7b worth of items with false country-of-origin labels

South Korea's customs agency said Tuesday it has detected 256.7 billion won ($179.6 million) worth of imported items disguised as being locally produced through September this year. The amount marks a 35 percent rise from the same period a year earlier, according to the Korea Customs Service. Among the major items were optical instruments, with their value reaching 115.8 billion, followed by machines with 60.8 billion won and auto parts with 8.7 percent. Home appliances also took up 6.7 bil

Oct. 11, 2022

Seoul shares open sharply lower on tech, auto losses

South Korean stocks opened sharply lower Tuesday as investors unloaded tech, auto and other issues amid worries that monetary tightening and geopolitical risks could tip the global economy into a recession. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) lost 48.12 points, or 2.16 percent, to 2,184.72 in the first 15 minutes of trading. In Seoul, most shares opened sharply lower, with tech and auto issues suffering heavy downswings. Market bellwether Samsung Electronics tumbled 3.56 perc

Oct. 11, 2022

Exports down 20.2% during first 10 days of October

South Korea's exports slipped 20.2 percent on-year in the first 10 days of October due mainly to sluggish overseas sales of chips, data showed Tuesday. The country's outbound shipments stood at $11.8 billion in the Oct. 1-10 period, compared with $14.8 billion a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Imports also went down 11.3 percent on-year to $15.6 billion during the cited period, resulting in a trade deficit of $3.8 billion. The decline also came as th

Oct. 11, 2022

Samsung's Ukraine office damaged by Russia's missile attack on Kyiv

A building housing Samsung Electronics Co.'s Ukraine operation was damaged following Russia's missile attack on Kyiv on Monday, officials said. Earlier in the day, Russia shelled several cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv, leaving at least five dead in the capital city alone, according to news reports. An official from Samsung Electronics confirmed that some of the building's windows were shattered following the attack, although a missile did not directly hit the location but landed some 150 m

Oct. 10, 2022

4 in 5 foreigner apartment purchases by Chinese, US nationals over past 7 years

SEJONG -- More than 80 percent of all apartment purchases by foreigners over the past seven years were made by US and Chinese nationals, an opposition party lawmaker said on Monday. According to relevant documents, which were handed over to Rep. Yang Kyung-sook of the Democratic Party of Korea from both the Land Ministry and the Korea Real Estate Board, foreigners bought 29,792 apartments in the local property market between January 2015 and August 2022. Of them, Chinese nationals bought

Oct. 10, 2022

Hanwha E&C withdraws from W14tr construction project in Iraq

Hanwha Engineering and Construction will withdraw from the 14 trillion won ($10.1 billion) Bismayah New City construction project in Iraq as the Iraqi government has failed to make payment. According to Hanwha E&C on Monday, its parent firm Hanwha Corp. informed the Iraq National Investment Commission last Friday it would revoke the contract due to the outstanding construction cost payment. The revocation comes into effect in three weeks. In May 2012, the firm had won the development project

Oct. 10, 2022

Naver, Kakao shares lose W63tr of market cap

Naver and Kakao, tech stocks that had moved the market during the COVID-19 pandemic, have recently become big disappointments to investors, having lost over a combined 63.3 trillion won ($44.4 billion) in market value since the beginning of the year. South Korea’s No. 1 search engine operator Naver has fallen 57 percent since the first trading day of the year. Its shares fell from 376,000 won on Jan. 3 to 160,000 won on Friday, pulling its market cap down from 62.9 trillion won to 26.2 tr

Oct. 10, 2022

BOK says riskier borrowers close to bankruptcy ahead of rate hike

Some 381,000 households would be unable to repay their loans even if they liquidated everything they have including their homes, as of December last year, Bank of Korea data showed Monday. The report -- revealed by Rep. Kang Jun-hyeon of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea as part of the annual parliamentary audit -- said “riskier borrowers” account for 3.2 percent of the entire loan group, with their loan volume making up 6.2 percent of the total at 69.4 trillion won ($48.

Oct. 10, 2022