Four Years of Choi Jung-woo's Posco... Achieved Long-cherished Goal of Transitioning to a Holding Company System (Comprehensive)

A New Challenge After 54 Years Since Founding
Investment in Secondary Battery Materials and More
Discovering New Growth Engines in Eco-Friendly and Infrastructure Sectors
Following Last Year's Record-Breaking Performance
Q2 Sales Hit an All-Time High

Choi Jung-woo, Chairman of POSCO Group, is waving a flag at the POSCO Holdings inauguration ceremony last March. Photo by POSCO

Choi Jung-woo, Chairman of the POSCO Group, marked his 4th anniversary in office on the 27th. Over the past four years, POSCO has taken an unprecedented path. To secure future growth businesses beyond its core steel company, it embarked on a new challenge by adopting a holding company system for the first time in its 54-year history. Investments in eco-friendly and infrastructure sectors, such as secondary battery materials, have become tangible results and established themselves as new growth engines for the group.

Among the four years of Chairman Choi’s tenure, the transition to a holding company in March this year stands out as the biggest milestone. With the launch of the group holding company, POSCO Holdings, Chairman Choi stated, "Today marks the beginning of the second founding in POSCO’s history," adding, "The launch of POSCO Holdings will be the first step toward transforming POSCO Group into a sustainable 100-year company, surpassing the legendary success we have achieved over the past half-century." Centered on the holding company, the business units have laid the foundation to strengthen their individual competitiveness. This means the group has evolved into a structure where it is no longer confined to the image of a steel company but can be recognized for value in the market through diverse business areas.

Chairman Choi has designated the group’s seven core businesses as ▲Steel ▲Secondary Battery Materials ▲Lithium & Nickel ▲Hydrogen ▲Energy ▲Construction & Infrastructure ▲Food, focusing all efforts on discovering future growth engines. Investments in future growth businesses are regarded as Chairman Choi’s ‘insight’ amid the recent global supply chain crisis. His first investment decision after taking office was in the lithium sector. Lithium, a key material for secondary batteries, has become a raw material fiercely competed for by countries amid the global supply chain crisis caused by conflicts between the U.S. and China, with international distribution prices soaring.

Just one month after his inauguration, in August 2018, Chairman Choi decided to acquire the Ombre Muerto salt lake mining rights in Argentina, and in March this year, a commercial plant was launched locally. After completion in the first half of 2024, the plant will produce 25,000 tons of lithium hydroxide annually, with plans to expand production to 100,000 tons by 2028 through additional investments.

From acquiring mining rights to exploration, construction, and operation of the production plant, POSCO Group is the first to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide in Argentina. The group signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Hancock, an Australian resource development company, for joint projects and also acquired shares in Ravenswood, a nickel mining and smelting specialist company. The goal is to establish a production and sales system by 2030 with 610,000 tons of cathode materials, 320,000 tons of anode materials, 300,000 tons of lithium, and 220,000 tons of nickel.

Additionally, the hydrogen business, nurtured as a new growth sector, plans to build a production system of 500,000 tons by 2030 and 7 million tons by 2050. In the energy sector, POSCO International and POSCO Energy are set to merge to unify LNG-related businesses. The construction & infrastructure and food businesses will also be strengthened.

The steel business, where POSCO has existing strengths, aims to maintain global competitiveness. POSCO has been ranked the world’s most influential steel company for 12 consecutive years. Alongside this, it is establishing an eco-friendly production system through technologies such as hydrogen reduction steelmaking and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).

Since transitioning to a holding company this year, POSCO Group has continued its record-breaking performance streak. Following a record-high performance last year with KRW 76.4 trillion in sales and KRW 9.2 trillion in operating profit, the group posted KRW 21.338 trillion in sales and KRW 2.258 trillion in operating profit in the first quarter of this year. This trend continued into the second quarter, with sales reaching KRW 23 trillion and operating profit KRW 2.1 trillion. Although operating profit slightly decreased, sales hit an all-time high. Due to the continued strong performance, the annual sales forecast was revised upward from KRW 77.2 trillion to KRW 86 trillion, an increase of KRW 8.8 trillion.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.