The integrated SK Holdings, established after SK C&C consolidated the existing SK Holdings, was officially inaugurated on Aug. 1. The new SK Holdings is the integrated holding company of SK Group, which possess 13.2 trillion won worth of assets and 4,100 employees. 

SK Group said SK Holdings aims at raising sales from the current 113 trillion won to 200 trillion won by 2020. 

The new company held its first shareholders’ meeting on Aug. 8, where the completion of the merger was approved so it could begin operations. The new SK Holdings is operated under a one-entity, two-track system in which the existing SK Holding and SK C&C, the IT unit of the business group, are retained and managed independently. The existing SK Holdings is responsible for brand management of the group and bio business, while SK C&C is charged with ICT service business. 

According to SK C&C, the new entity retained the name SK Holdings to sustain the conglomerate’s brand identity. 

The original SK Holdings president and CEO Cho Dae-sik and SK C&C CEO Park Jung-ho will respectively head the merged firm’s two business divisions, which will retain their original titles. SK Group said the inauguration of the new holding company, with a debt ratio standing at 46 percent and 1.2 trillion won in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), will greatly boost its corporate value. 

President Cho said the integrated SK Holdings targets 200 trillion won in sales and 10 trillion won in pretax income by 2020. 

The integrated SK Holdings plans to nurture five top growth engines — IT service, ICT convergence, liquefied natural gas, bio/pharmaceutical and semiconductor materials/modules. 

The IT service business division, with \current mainstay businesses such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and management information systems (MIS), will be expanded to Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT). 

The ICT convergence business division will focus on such convergence security arenas as unmanned guard and digital video surveillance, as well as smart logistics using ICT technologies. The division will set in motion group-wide demand before moving on an expansionary mode. The division, which agreed to set up a joint venture with Hon Hai, plans to make inroads into the Chinese market, starting 2017.

The LNG business division plans to focus on its capacity to supply LNG. To this end, the division plans to import 2.2 million annually during the period between 2019 and 2039 after liquefying shale gas in the United States. 

The bio/pharmaceutical business division plans to nurture SK Biopharmaceuticals, a subsidiary wholly owned by the existing SK Holdings, developing new drugs and pharmaceutical intermediates into an integrated bio company covering production, marketing and sales. 

SK Biopharmaceuticals is to make an initial public offering and conduct M&A activities after 2018. 

Essencore, a semiconductor module subsidiary owned wholly by SK C&C, aims to raise sales from 268.3 billion won in 2014 to 1 trillion won by 2018. 

SK Securities researcher Choi Kwan-soon said SK Holdings and SK C&C’s current conventional businesses have high growth potential and will have strong synergetic effects in such new growth engines areas as convergence security and smart logistics with group subsidiaries.