[Column] Doosan, Late Apology for 'Lack of Shareholder Communication,' Still Must Pursue Business Restructuring

Scott Park, Vice Chairman of Doosan Bobcat, is answering questions from the press at a press conference on the Doosan Enerbility-Doosan Robotics spin-off merger held on the afternoon of the 21st at the Plaza Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. From the left, Jeonghoon Ryu, CEO of Doosan Robotics; Sanghyun Park, CEO of Doosan Enerbility; Scott Park, Vice Chairman of Doosan Bobcat.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

"We apologize for the confusion and concern caused by the lack of communication."

The executives of Doosan Group, who are re-pushing the business restructuring, bowed their heads. This took place at Doosan Group's business restructuring briefing on the 21st. The CEOs of the three companies involved in the merger?Doosan Enerbility, Doosan Bobcat, and Doosan Robotics?came forward to directly explain the effects and synergies of the restructuring. While acknowledging shortcomings in the communication process, they emphasized that the business restructuring is a 'path that must be taken.'

In the re-push plan, Doosan increased the value of Doosan Bobcat (the intrinsic value of the newly established corporation) by about three times. The original plan announced in July faced criticism for undervaluing Doosan Bobcat, the group's 'cash cow,' and choosing a comprehensive stock exchange method for control transfer, which could have caused losses to shareholders. The re-push plan is a result of addressing such criticisms. As a result, based on the previous day's closing price, owning 100 shares of Doosan Enerbility (2,065,000 KRW) would have seen the stock value drop to 1,778,595 KRW under the original plan, but it rises to 2,134,955 KRW under the re-push plan. Doosan's business restructuring plan now needs to be reevaluated by shareholders and the market.

Why is Doosan's business restructuring necessary now? Doosan aims to ride the wave of the industrial and energy transition era. Park Sang-hyun, CEO of Doosan Enerbility, explained at a press conference, "Since the creditor group system in 2020, Doosan has been contemplating a 'New Doosan' centered on energy, machinery, and materials, and this business restructuring plan is the concretization of that vision." Doosan Enerbility plans to immediately invest approximately 1 trillion KRW of available funds obtained through this restructuring process into new nuclear power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs). The SMR business, which once seemed distant, is becoming concrete recently through investments such as Amazon's 500 million USD (about 689 billion KRW) commitment. Thanks to the demand from the AI industry, which consumes large amounts of power, the energy market's business potential has become limitless.

Despite the noise during the merger process, the business synergy between Doosan Bobcat and Doosan Robotics is an anticipated highlight. Doosan Robotics ranks 4th globally in the collaborative robot market, represented by 'robot arms.' Doosan plans to combine Doosan Bobcat's forklifts with collaborative robots to respond to the rapidly increasing robot demand in construction, agriculture, and other sectors. Ryu Jung-hoon, CEO of Doosan Robotics, said, "When calculating the synergy between Doosan Robotics and Doosan Bobcat, we expect short-term synergy of 100 billion KRW by 2026 and 500 billion KRW by 2030." In response to the question, "Why should Bobcat and Robotics be merged as a parent-subsidiary company rather than as group affiliates?" Doosan explained, "When they are affiliates, there is no point of contact, but when one becomes a subsidiary, it is recorded as an investment asset, creating a need to increase the company's value." This is a somewhat reasonable point as a basis for the merger, as it creates a structure for active collaboration and cooperation.

There is significant regret over Doosan's failure to anticipate shareholder backlash during this business restructuring process. However, since this is the right time for investment, it is now essential to focus entirely on the restructuring process and enhance shareholder value through the results.

Jung Dong-hoon, Industrial IT Department Reporter

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