Company aims to earn W2tr from green chemicals business


SK Chemicals will aim to make 3 trillion won ($2.8 billion) in sales in 2015, chief executive Kim Chang-geun recently told his company, SK Chemicals said Monday.

SK Chemicals is a pharmaceuticals and chemicals maker affiliated to the country’s third largest conglomerate, SK Group. The company currently holds the largest share of Korea’s market for vaccines.

According to the company, Kim announced plans to increase sales generated from the company’s green chemicals business to 2 trillion won, and raise 1 trillion won from its life science operations, raising the total to 3 trillion won by 2015.

 

Kim also set the target for the company’s operating profits for that year at 300 billion won.

The target sales figure set for 2015 is more than double that recorded last year, and the operating profits target is about four times that of last year.

By business, sales generated from the company’s green chemicals will have risen by more than 300 percent from last year if the 2 trillion won target is obtained.

The target for its life science business is about 280 percent higher than the 354.8 billion won in sales generated from the area last year.

In total, SK Chemicals’ sales came in at 1.33 trillion won while operating profits came in at 62.8 billion won last year.

In the five-year period running up to 2011, SK Chemicals’ sales increased by about 52 percent rising from 872 billion won recorded in 2006, while operating profits increased by about 65 percent over the same period.

Kim, who headed SK Group’s restructuring efforts in the past, is widely credited with renovating SK Chemicals’ profit structure since taking the helm at the company in 2004.

Under Kim’s leadership, the company’s chemical and fabric-focused portfolio was altered to place more emphasis on “eco-friendly materials and total health care solutions,” the company said.

As part of the process, the company also sold all of its stakes in its Poland-based subsidiary SK Eurochem and its Indonesian operations to a Thai buyer last year. The transactions carried out at the end of last year completed a 10-year project aimed at establishing green chemicals and life science businesses as its main earners.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)