Sixty years ago in 1952, the late founder Kim Jong-hee, only 30 years old at the time, took over Chosun Explosives Co. and set up the Korea Explosives Co. and began to operate the new company to produce explosives during the Korean War, which was the same year his oldest son and current Chairman Kim Seung-youn was born.

Hanwha Group celebrated its 60th anniversary on Oct. 9. The late chairman ran the group for its first 30 years and his son took over the helm at age 29 when his father passed away in 1981.

But the chairman was unable to celebrate the meaningful day for the group in his office because he is under court arrest serving a four-year sentence on charges of fraud. The group did not hold a ceremony to celebrate the anniversary.

The group continues to grow under the junior Kim’s leadership amid a tough business environment in which many firms have gone belly-up. Among the 100 largest firms listed in 1950, only seven still remain in business including Hanwha.

The late founder focused on petrochemicals and machinery as the two main pillars of the group so that it could rank among the top 10 conglomerates in Korea. He started Hanwha with only 500 million won in capital and the company posted 50 million won in sales in the initial year of its operation. But in 1981, 30 years after its launch, the company grossed 1.107 trillion won in annual sales with total assets of 754.8 billion won.

In 1982, just a year after the young chairman inherited the group, engineered the takeover of Hanyang Chemical and Korea Dow Chemical followed by the takeover of Jungah Group, renamed Hanwha Hotel and Resort. He also took over Hanyang Retail, which is currently called Hanwha Galleria, extending the group’s business lines to retailing and leisure.

Coming into the 2000s, the group continued with its M&A moves by taking over Korea Life Insurance Co. and Shindongah Non-Life Insurance Co., now renamed Hanwha General Insurance Co., under the group’s strategy to make the insurance business part of its growth engines. Korea Life Insurance Co. changed its name to Hanhwa Life Insurance on the occasion of the 10th anniversary since it was taken over by Hanhwa Group, now with total assets of 70.28 trillion won.

The junior Kim has done a brilliant job expanding the group’s growth with total assets expanding to 101.65 trillion won, 135 times since he took over the top job in 1981, while sales revenue grew 32 times to 35.95 trillion won annually, about 32 times.

Chairman Kim in his New Year’s speech, said in the Orient, the 60th year in life means the completion of a life cycle and, at the same time, the beginning of a new cycle. The group has been engaged in the preparation of the new start. In 2010, the group took over Solar Fun Power Holdings Co. in China, now renamed Hanwha Solar One, signaling Hanwha’s official entry into the new solar power business, and expanded to Germany and the United States, strengthening its global solar power generation network. In Iraq, the group won a housing project worth 9 trillion won, part of a mammoth Iraqi new town construction project.

The group has also been pursuing bio-similar and second electric battery manufacturing as its new growth engines. The group adopted as its management theme ‘trust and loyalty’and added ‘challenge, devotion and the just road’as its core values to be pursued, which include the chairman’s intention to have the group be reborn as a young conglomerate to cope with the new trends in a new age on the occasion of its 60th year in business.