Setopia Signs MOU with NS WORLD, Producer of Essential Electric Vehicle Component ND Magnets

Setopia announced on the 3rd that it has signed a strategic business agreement (MOU) with NS World (hereinafter NS World) to acquire a portion of NS World’s shares in order to advance the establishment of a domestic rare earth cluster.

Through this MOU, Setopia plans to build a complete value chain for the project aimed at establishing a rare earth cluster by acquiring shares in NS World. The goal is to complete the manufacturing process linkage from rare earth basic materials such as oxides, metals, powders, and permanent magnets (for BLDC motors and sensors) to the final products.

NS World is a specialized manufacturer of ferrite and neodymium permanent magnet (NdFeB) components, located in Cheongju, Chungbuk. Its overseas business headquarters are located in Tianjin, China, and Hanoi, Vietnam. Since its founding in 2007, the company has continuously conducted research and development and was selected as a Chungbuk Star Company in 2020, recognized as a promising small and medium venture company. Currently, it produces and processes various forms of ferrite permanent magnet components and NdFeB bonded permanent magnets using NdFeB powder, supplying them to domestic and international automobile manufacturers and home appliance companies.

NS World has successfully localized the production and supply of electric water pump (EWP) valve materials essential for water-cooled cooling systems to prevent overheating of electric vehicle batteries, in collaboration with Hyundai Motor Company’s Namyang Research Center over three years. Additionally, it produces permanent magnets for BLDC (Brushless DC) motors used in various sensors, motor valves, oil pumps, and widely used home appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, and water purifiers. The company is continuously conducting research and development to achieve localization and the highest quality, aiming to reduce dependence on overseas NdFeB-based components from countries like China and Japan.

Furthermore, the final end users are domestic automobile companies, major home appliance corporations, and overseas automobile parts manufacturers, with the goal of growing into a magnet component company with world-class competitiveness.

A Setopia representative stated, “NS World, whose shares we are in the process of acquiring, is a company with top-level competitiveness and potential, having grown by gaining technological recognition from end users and possessing a domestic direct parts production base.” He added, “It is highly meaningful that we have completed a stage of the value chain leading to end users by stably supplying rare earth oxides from Vietnam, producing NdFeB powder through KCM Industry, and finally manufacturing various bonded permanent magnets using NdFeB powder at NS World, which is an essential element for realizing our planned rare earth cluster establishment.”

He continued, “We will do our best to achieve the goal of completing the domestic rare earth permanent magnet cluster through continuous collaboration with related domestic corporations, including those in Vietnam.”

Permanent magnets, known as a representative application field of rare earths, possess the strongest magnetic force among existing magnets. They are suitable for miniaturization and weight reduction of electronic products and are used as core materials in electric vehicles, wind power generation, air conditioners, and more.

In March, Setopia established a domestic joint venture (JV) and signed an oxide supply contract with VTRE in Vietnam, which has oxide refining and supply capabilities. Additionally, last month, it signed a contract to acquire approximately 60% of the shares of KCM Industry, which possesses domestic NdFeB powder manufacturing technology and oxide metallization technology.

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