Korean conglomerate chalks up fast growth
South Korea’s LS Group announced on March 29 that it had chalked up the best performances last year in two decades after its foundation back in 2003.The Seoul-based group with more than 50 subsidiaries said that its 2022 sales had amounted to 36.35 trillion won ($28 billion) for a profit of 2 trillion won ($1.53 billion).LS Group Chairman Koo Ja-eun said that the record performances could be attributable to the efforts of all employees.“Beginning this year, we will more proactively move to sprout the seeds of futuristic businesses so as to achieve the Vision 2030 and rack up a quantum jump,” Koo said.The Vision 2030 is the grandiose goal of LS Group, which tries to double its assets from the current 25 trillion won ($19 billion) to 50 trillion won ($38 billion) by the end of this decade.Toward that end, the conglomerate plans to invest more than 20 trillion won ($15.3 billion) over the next eight years.Specifically, LS Group vies to strengthen its competitiveness in its major businesses of electricity, materials, and energy, as well as find new growth engines in various areas.Carbon-free electricity
As a megatrend, Chairman Koo has stressed the significance of carbon-free electricity (CFE), which refers to electrical energy produced from resources generating no carbon emissions.“Over the next 30 years, the world’s common task would be net zero. To achieve the goal, CFE is the most significant issue,” Koo said in his 2023 New Year message.“The global transition to CFE offers us a great opportunity to LS Group, which focuses on energy and electricity.”Unlike zero carbon, net zero means that any carbon emissions should be balanced or canceled out by taking the same amount of carbon out of the atmosphere.Indeed, LS Group has focused on renewable energy and next-generation industries.For example, its affiliate LS Cable & System has won a contract to provide HVDC cables worth 400 billion won ($310 million) for the wind power complex in Vanguard of the British North Sea.LS Electric has briskly tapped into the electric vehicle component markets by building production facilities out of the country, including China and Mexico.키워드
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Tim Kim
(voc200@gmail.com)