The Hyosung Group has announced its official adoption of the holding company system, with Hyosung Corp. to serve as the holding company and four affiliates – Hyosung TNC, Hyosung Advanced Materials, Hyosung Heavy Industries and Hyosung Chemical – to handle manufacturing and operations.
Hyosung Corp. and the four affiliates held their first joint meeting of their boards of directors on June 1 since the reorganization. The board of each affiliate voted on the appointment of the CEO, internal and external directors, and members of the audit committee.
A total of 11 internal and 20 external directors were appointed for the five companies. The hiring of experts from various fields as external directors is expected to significantly reinforce objectivity and transparency.
Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Hyun-joon and the Board Chairman of each affiliate then held a meeting with all five boards of directors attended by their respective chairmen. They discussed achieving mutual success like through maximizing synergy through close co-operation under the holding company system.
“Hyosung will leverage the expertise possessed by the holding company Hyosung Corp. and the four new operating affiliates to maintain and advance transparent management and raise our competitiveness to become a perennial global leader, thus enhancing our corporate and customer value,” Chairman Cho said.
He also expressed his plan to create a new Hyosung under the holding company system.
Since his appointment last year, the Chairman has stressed the importance of transparent management. In July last year, he formed the transparent management committee under the company’s Board of Directors, appointed an external director as a lead committee member and named an external director as the lead member of the committee for recommending external directors. Last February, he broke from the company’s tradition of having the CEO chair the Board of Directors by resigning as Chairman to raise the transparency of corporate governance.
Under the holding company system, Hyosung Corp., as the control tower of the group will focus on fostering high-profit business portfolios and enhance brand value. It will also advance corporate governance and achieve transparent management not only by managing the performance of the affiliates but ensure their operations are focused on their respective boards and professional executives.
Hyosung will reinforce the global competitiveness of the four affiliates by having them as independent entities under the supervision of professional executives. The conversion to the holding company system is slated for completion by the year end via investment in kind and capital increase with consideration after the listing of the four new companies is concluded on July 13.
Hyosung TNC will utilize its unique and highly competitive brand of spandex to tap a variety of overseas markets: the company controls 32 per cent of the global market for spandex. In addition, its trading division will raise its international competitiveness based on the company’s cutting-edge marketing infrastructure and knowhow.
To this end, the company appointed Executive Managing Director Kim Yong-seop as CEO, who has a wealth of expertise and experience in spandex. He started out as a spandex researcher and eventually headed Hyosung’s spandex venture in Brazil and Spandex Performance Unit.
Also appointed as an internal director was Executive Managing Director Lee Cheon-gyu, a global sales expert. Four experts in their respective fields were added as external directors.
Hyosung Advanced Materials seeks to grow into a leading provider of automotive materials focusing on tire reinforcements, including polyester tire cord, car mats, and yarns for automotive seat belts and airbags; its tire cords dominate the global market with a 45 per cent share. The plan is to foster new materials such as aramid and carbon fiber as Hyosung’s next growth engines.
The company appointed Vice President Hwang Jeong-mo as CEO, who has helped maintain quality and raised technological competitiveness during his long stint as the head of tire cord production and technology, and Executive Managing Director Kim Seung-han as an internal director, who was head of the Interior Performance Unit.
Hyosung Heavy Industries will fully utilize its extensive knowhow and peerless technology in power systems and industrial machinery to reinforce its global competitiveness. It also enhances its expertise in construction, including in housing and redevelopment projects.
The company to this end appointed as CEO Vice President Moon Seop-cheol, who has led the company’s global expansion of new business lines like STATCOM and supervised sales and production for the core business of Power & Industrial Systems PG (e.g., ultra-high voltage (UHV) transformers), and as an internal director Vice President Kim Dong-woo, who helped turn around the Construction Performance Unit after taking over the unit in 2013 and contributed to landing annual contracts worth KRW 1 trillion in 2014.
Hyosung Chemical’s vision is to emerge as a chemical substance specialist in PP/DH, TPA and film and develop new growth engines like NF3, TAC film and polyketone.
The company named Hyosung Chemical President Park Joon-Hyeong as CEO, who served as a manager in the chemical division, and appointed Executive Managing Director Choi Yeong-gyo as an internal director, who is active in R&D to develop and improve Hyosung’s chemical products