Heo Tae-soo: "Better Investment Environment Due to Recession and Economic Contraction... Active Investment"

First New Business Strategy Meeting Since Group Foundation
"Accelerating Discovery of Future Growth Engines and Expansion of New Business Ecosystem"

GS Chairman Heo Tae-soo is speaking about the presentation materials at the GS New Business Report Meeting held at the GS Retail Workshop Center in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province on the 7th.

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] GS Group held its first-ever new business briefing session since its founding to assess the group-wide new business capabilities.

On the 7th, GS announced that it held a new business strategy briefing session at the GS Retail Workshop Center in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, attended by Chairman Huh Tae-soo and about 50 executives in charge of new businesses from major affiliates. For a full nine hours, they shared new business strategies and progress by affiliate, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), business partnerships, and venture investment status.

Until now, GS has held briefing sessions focused on business strategies in the first half and business performance in the second half of the year, but this time, it held its first briefing session solely focused on new businesses.

GS shared detailed information on the technologies and business models of companies it has invested in, as well as collaboration opportunities with GS, centered on new business fields such as bio, circular economy, and energy transition.

GS Caltex introduced progress in hydrogen, biofuels, plastic recycling, and electric vehicle charging, while GS Energy revealed its commercialization strategies for blue ammonia development and distribution, battery recycling, small modular reactors (SMR), and electric vehicle charging, expressing its vision to evolve into a comprehensive power company covering everything from power generation to sales.

GS Retail shared achievements in quick commerce that links online and offline to provide new shopping experiences, HMR (home meal replacement) convenience foods, and the pet business leading the companion animal market, while GS Global committed to actively supporting the group’s overall new business initiatives, including eco-friendly fuel supply, through its overseas network capabilities.

GS Construction announced its business expansion strategies by integrating eco-friendly new technologies into housing and plant construction capabilities, including prefab eco-friendly buildings, water treatment, smart aquaculture, data center construction, and battery recycling.

Additionally, the status of M&A, business partnerships, and venture investments executed for new business development was shared. GS conveyed its policy to actively pursue M&A when necessary to secure future growth engines, citing examples such as the bio healthcare company Hugel and the delivery platform Yogiyo.

GS Group headquarters (GS Tower) exterior view.

Furthermore, business partnerships that jointly create new businesses with other companies were highlighted as an important way to expand the new business ecosystem. GS Caltex is expanding its biofuel business with POSCO International and jointly developing 3-HP mass production technology with LG Chem.

GS Energy, aiming to introduce blue ammonia, known as the oil of the hydrogen economy era, cooperated with ADNOC, the largest oil company in the Middle East, and partnered with POSCO for the battery recycling business. It also formed a business alliance with U.S. NuScale Power and others for the SMR small modular nuclear power plant project.

The venture startup investment activities actively utilized as a new business strategy by GS Group were also introduced. GS Ventures and GS Futures, CVCs (corporate venture capitals) under the GS holding company, explained trends in new technology ventures and recent investment activities in Korea and North America.

Chairman Huh Tae-soo said, "The core of GS’s future growth strategy is to create new businesses together with external partners possessing diverse capabilities such as partners, private equity, venture capital, and startups," adding, "The recent recession and economic downturn provide a better investment environment, so let us expand the new business ecosystem through active investment, business cooperation, and open innovation."

On the 7th, the GS New Business Report Meeting held at the GS Retail Workshop Center in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do.

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