Byung-Keun Kim 2 HOURS AGO
ENG
Seoul Semiconductor Co. has moved up one notch to third place in the world s light-emitting diode display market, becoming the only LED maker among the top three to post sales growth in the market that shrank slightly last year.
The South Korean display maker racked up $898 million in 2020 sales, or $7 million more than Lumileds Holdings which took the third spot between 2018 and 2019, according to market research firm Omdia on Apr. 13.
Japan s Nichia and Germany s Osram held onto first and second place, respectively. But each of them suffered a year-on-year drop of 7% and 8% in 2020 sales in the market that contracted by 8.6% to $11.1 billion from a year earlier.
Copper-clad laminates (Courtesy of Doosan Co.)
Doosan Co., the holding company of South Korea s Doosan Group, is in contact with several private equity firms to sell its in-house electronic materials division that produces copper-clad laminates (CCLs), a core material for OLED displays.
The company of the heavy machinery and power equipment-focused group is in the early stages of talks with both domestic and overseas PEFs, asking for over 1 trillion won ($888 million) for the profit-making division, according to investment banking sources on Apr. 13.
Doosan, 44% owned by its founding members, plans to use the proceeds from the planned carve-out to take over Doosan Bobcat Co., one of the group s core units, from Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. which owns 51% of Bobcat. Based on the market capitalization of 4 trillion won, the 51% stake is worth around 2 trillion won.
Kia s first dedicated electric vehicle, EV6 (Courtesy of Kia)
Kia Corp. has issued its first foreign currency ESG bonds worth $700 million to strengthen its investment in electric vehicles and other eco-friendly initiatives.
According to the investment banking industry on Apr. 13, Kia has issued non-guaranteed, dollar-denominated green bonds for sale to global institutions based outside the US.
The bond issuance marks Kia s second foreign debt after the first set in 2017.
Of the total, $300 million worth of bonds were issued with a maturity of three years, while the other $400 million have a maturity of five and a half years.
The three-year bonds have a yield of 75 basis points above the yield on US treasuries with the same maturity, whereas the five-and-a-half-year bonds have a yield of 90 basis points above the US treasuries yield with the same maturity.
Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun.
Hyundai Engineering Co., an unlisted construction affiliate of the Hyundai Motor Group, is seeking an initial public offering on the Korean bourse, a move widely seen as a precursor to the automotive group’s ownership revamp.
According to the investment banking industry on Apr. 13, Hyundai Engineering last week sent out a request for proposals (RFP) to brokerages interested in managing its planned IPO.
Among the prospective IPO managers are Mirae Asset Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, NH Investment & Securities, Shinhan Investment Corp. and Hana Financial Investment. Citigroup Global Markets Korea, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Credit Suisse have also been asked to submit a bid.