Korea’s Samyang to manage 30% assets globally by 2025

Samyang Group, a South Korean food and chemicals producer, aims to manage 30% of its total assets overseas by 2025, while fostering nutrition, medical and eco-friendly materials as its core business for future, its chairman said.

“In order to cope with the new normal era in which uncertainty is deepening, we need to focus on reorganizing our core businesses and enhancing our execution capabilities,” Samyang Group Chairman Kim Yoon told employees in an online meeting on Aug. 2.

“To reinforce specialty business, we have to intensively nurture health and wellness sectors by expanding nutrition, medical and personal care business,” Kim said. “We will also make rapid inroads into eco-friendly business with successful commercialization of biodegradable plastic material isosorbide and recycling.”

Early in July, Samyang Corp., which is in charge of the group’s key food and chemical business, said it has developed an eco-friendly plastic for the first time in Korea using starch-based isosorbide, a base material for various kinds of biodegradable derivatives.

Samyang aims to generate 60% or more of the group’s total operating profit from those specialty products, while operating 30% of the total assets globally, Kim said without elaboration.

Last year, Samyang joined the bid to acquire US-based Emerald Kalama Chemical, a specialty materials maker, in a move to secure new growth drivers and shore up its overseas presence, according to the chemical industry sources in South Korea.

But German chemicals company Lanxess AG agreed to buy Emerald Kalama in February, media reported.

Write to Sul-Li Jun at sljun@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.