Hyosung has been grappling with management issues in recent years, including the vacuum caused by Hyosung Chairman S. R. Cho’s long-standing cancer fight. The group’s business performances have been improving steady, however. Hyosung saw its operating profit rise from 233.1 billion won in 2012 to 485.9 billion won in 2013. The group posted explosive growth with a jump to 600.3 billion won and 950.2 billion won in 2014 and 2015 in operating profit, respectively. 

Hyosung, marking the 50th anniversary of its founding in 2016, is likely to surpass the 1 trillion won threshold in operating profit this year, analysts said. A sharp surge in operating profit is forecast to creep into the sharp upward movement of the group’s share prices.

Hyosung logged 801.3 billion won and 250 billion won in operating profit in the third and fourth quarters of this year, respectively, financial investment industry sources said on Nov. 28. Chances are high that Hyosung will post 1.055 trillion won in operating profit for the whole of this year, they said. Despite a slight decline in 2016 sales over the previous year, an improvement in Hyosung’s business performances is owed to a strong run of the company’s textile business and an advance by such chemical businesses as tire cord and Hyosung’s strengths, they said. 

FnGuide said Hyosung is projected to see its operating profit rise 10 percent to 1.169 trillion won next year. The company’s fundamentals are getting stronger. Hyosung’s rate of operating profit, which stood at 4.9 percent in 2014, is predicted to surge to 8.9 percent in 2016 and 9.3 percent next year, FnGuide said. Businesses generally have ups and downs, but of late, all businesses are in good shape, a group official said. Hyosung’s moving production abroad ahead of others to several locations in China, Vietnam, Americas and Europe is expected to result in higher profits, he added. 

Hyosung’s completion of a project to expand the annual capacity of its polypropylene production plant in Ulsan from 320,000 ton to 520,000 tons last month is expected to begin to have a positive impact on the company’s balance sheet from the fourth quarter of the year, securities sources said. In the global spandex market in which Hyosung owns a large share, Hyosung plans to expand the Guzhou plant in China to raise its operating profit. 

Hyosung is expected to benefit from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s public pledge to implement a massive infrastructure project. Hyosung’s ultra-high transformer sales will like rise if Trump follows through with his pledge, stock analysts said. 

Hyosung now owns a 30 percent share in the global ultra-high voltage transformer market, Han Seung-jae an analyst with Dongbu Securities said. 

All of Hyosung’s businesses are stabile, and some are showing signs of improvement, he said, while Hyosung’s overall financial situation has improved. The company has seen its debt ratio plunge from 379 percent in late 2014 to about 200 percent this year as 750 billion won in borrowings has been paid back.

Hyosung Focuses on Exploration of New Energy Businesses 

Despite uncertainties related to external business circumstances, Hyosung Business Group is managing to tide over a crisis based on proprietary technology and the high quality of globally leading products such as spandex and tire cords. The group is now moving fast to expand products with a global competitive edge by maxing out the technological power and expertise it has accumulated in the field of heavy electric systems for power transmission and distribution, while aggressively nurturing such future energy businesses as high-voltage direct currents (IHVDC) and energy storage systems (ESS). 

Hyosung’s value-added spandex brand creora maintained the global top position during the first three months of this year. Hyosung is trying to overcome a crisis by tapping global markets. Currently, the spandex market is forecast to not be rosy due to a supply glut caused by Chinese companies’ expansion and declining demand in Russia and Western Europe. 

Hyosung plans to release additional products tailored to meet customers’ demand, differentiating itself from its rivals, based on a thorough market surveys.  

Hyosung’s Spandex Performance Unit has been expanding its technology and business to produce the world’s best spandex brand through specialized production and R&D, a global network, and marketing strategies. Since its establishment in 1992, Hyosung’s spandex brand creora has been developing new products to meet the needs of customers through continuous R&D.

Creora provides excellence in terms of uniformity and productivity. It has distinguished its brand through differentiated global marketing activities by introducing its customers’ fabric to famous brands at creora Fabric Library, located in cities such as Seoul, New York, Milano, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.