LSIS Chairman Koo Ja-kyun and his wife cut a cake together with a staffer who has been promoted to manage and his wife at a dinner held at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in Samseong-dong, Seoul, on Jan. 22. (Photo: LSIS)

LSIS Chairman Koo Ja-kyun took time to have dinner with about 320 staffers and their wives, many of whom were promoted to manager recently at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in Samseong-dong, Seoul, on Jan. 22.

The annual gathering marked the ninth occurrence since 2001. The meeting takes place at the request of Chairman Koo, which stresses a challenging spirit of youth staffers, particularly managers, essential for sustainable growth.

LSIS simplified staff rankings into three stages – associate manager, manger and senior manager. The latest meeting, dubbed “Smart Working Happy Life,” brought together roughly 320 staffers from company headquarters in Anyang, research institutes and operations across the nation, including Cheonju, Cheonan and Busan, the largest number.

Participants also included major executives and chiefs of teams in which their juniors promoted to managers.

Upon seeing LSIS Chairman Koo and his wife on the front row, Kim Dae-hyun, a communications expert and a speaker of the gathering, said it was the first time a chairman had participated in a managers’ meeting.

Chairman Koo called for managers to be independent “trailblazers,” saying that LSIS’s continued growth despite unfavorable market conditions was made possible by young and strong managers’ endless dreaming and challenging.

Koo warned them against “sticking to the conventional mold.” Roads were built to conform to the width of the Roman army’s chariots, said the chairman, adding that once a route was built, it was not easy to depart from it. But he warned that following the conventional path cannot guarantee survival in an era of paradigm shift. His remarks may be construed as his emphasis on more trailblazers.

Chairman Koo hinted at aggressive M&As in 2019 for growth. In a later meeting with reporters, he said as children were raised, their stature and size did not grow simultaneously, now is a time when LSIS has to strengthen its physique (outside growth). His remarks may be construed as an indication of his determination to make aggressive M&As now that the company has improved business performances while fundamentals have been ramped up.

LSIS Logs Best-Ever Sales

Despite of the sagging global economy, LSIS registered its best business performance last year since it was separated as a subsidiary of LS Group. The results are owing to stable growth of the mainstay business, electricity/automation equipment and the rising power infrastructure and smart energy segments being nurtured as new businesses.

In an electronic filing, posted on Jan. 29, LSIS states that it posted 2.485 trillion won in sales, 205.1 trillion won in operating profit and 132.2 billion won in net profit in 2018. The figures represented a 6 percent rise, a 29.4per cent jump and a 24.7 percent, respectively, over the previous year.

LSIS chalked up 630.4 billion won in sales, 31.7 billion won in operating profit, and 14.4 billion won in net profit in the fourth quarter of 2018. Compared to the same period of the previous year, the company saw sales and operating profit surge 4.3 percent and 35.3 percent, but net profit decline 7.9 percent.

LSIS’s best-ever business performance was mainly attributable to a stable growth seen in the mainstay business, electricity/automation equipment, the smart energy business’s turning into a profit, and a rising profitability in the power infrastructure business.