Edison CEO aspires to be Korea’s Elon Musk with Ssangyong takeover

Kang Young-kwon, chairman and chief executive of South Korea’s Edison Motors Co., was virtually unheard of in the country’s automobile industry until the company stepped up to acquire much bigger, but troubled Ssangyong Motor Co. this summer.

The small electric bus maker formed a consortium with financial investors such as Seoul-based Keystone Private Equity and submitted a binding bid in mid-September to acquire a controlling stake in the debt-laden sport utility vehicle maker, currently under court protection.

On Wednesday, the Edison-led consortium was named the preferred buyer of Ssangyong Motor by a Seoul bankruptcy court, and if all goes to plan, the electric bus maker will become the new owner of the SUV maker by year-end.

“Everyone said I was crazy when I told them I would sell my waste recycling company, which was very profitable, and buy Ssangyong instead. I think Tesla’s Elon Musk faced similar criticism when he started what has now become the world’s top EV maker,” Kang said in a recent interview with The Korea Economic Daily.

FROM TV PRODUCER TO ENTREPRENEUR

A TV producer-turned-entrepreneur, Kang says he wants to transform Ssangyong into a major electric vehicle brand to rival global automakers such as Tesla.

“Five years from now, it will be still hard for us to compete against Tesla. But ten years from now, I’m sure we will be on par with Tesla and eventually surpass it. We have the know-how and technology,” he said.

Kang started his career as a TV program producer at Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) in 1985, and started his own TV program production company in 1999. He then moved into the waste disposal business in 2003 and sold the company to Anchor Equity Partners for 120 billion won ($102 million) in 2016.

With the proceeds, he purchased a Chinese electric carmaker called TGM in 2017 and rebranded it as Edison Motors.

“We named our company after the inventor, Thomas Edison. We were born to be an electric carmaker,” he said. “From the start, we aimed to overtake Tesla.”

EYES SSANGYONG NAME CHANGE POST-ACQUISITION

The Edison CEO said he plans to change Ssangyong’s name to something like Edison V or Edison Mobility at the appropriate time, to expand the company's business scope to various mobility means, including personal air vehicles (PAVs) and drones.

Initially, he plans to sell about 300,000 cars, including up to 100,000 EVs and 50,000 hybrid cars, a year from establishing the new Ssangyong.

Kang said he also plans to launch EV production joint ventures abroad, taking advantage of Ssangyong’s and Edison’s EV technology and related patents.

Ssangyong in July showed off the design for an electric crossover dubbed the J100, together with the design for an SUV dubbed the X200 that looked like the Jeep Wrangler. The company also said it plans to launch an electric version of its existing Korando crossover.

While Ssangyong’s electric SUV has a driving range of some 300 km on a single charge, Edison’s battery pack with its smart battery management system could pull that figure up to 450 or even 800 km, he said.

Currently, the biggest supplier of electric buses to Seoul City, Edison posted sales revenue of 89.8 billion won in 2020.

Kang said he aims to raise Edison’s sales to 780 billion won in 2022 and 3 trillion won by 2023.

“People say Edison is too small a company to run Ssangyong. I don’t agree with that. We have all the technology and know-how to run an automaker,” he said. “If no one acquires Ssangyong and leaves it to go under, it would deal a heavy blow to the Korean auto industry. Also, Ssangyong’s 4,600 workers will lose their jobs. I don’t want to see that happen.”

The current owner of Ssangyong is Indian automaker Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. with a 75% stake. However, Mahindra has held back on further investment in SsangYong as it faces its own declining sales.

Last year, Mahindra canceled a $406 million investment in SsangYong and put the automaker up for sale.

Write to Jae-Fu Kim, Ji-Hye Min and Jong-Woo Kim at hu@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.