LG Chem Senior Vice President Nam Chul and DeFu owner Ma Ke clap their hands as they attend a ceremony in which LG Chem signed a deal to make a take investment in DeFu. On May 16. (Photo: LG Chem)

LG Chem will pour 150 billion won as a core investor (Anchor Limited Partner) into the Korea Battery & ESG (KBE) Fund managed by the domestic private equity fund management company, IMM Credit Solution.

This is the first time LG Chem will invest as a core investor for capital raised by an external asset management company.

The plans are to raise over 400 billion won for the KBE Fund to invest in domestic companies equipped with technologies and growth potential in ESG industry-related sectors.

The fields that are preferentially being reviewed for investments are core materials for EV batteries such as cathode and anode material manufacturing, recycling core metals for batteries, etc. and the eco-friendly industry materials sector that includes recycling polymer products like waste plastics, as well as biodegradable plastic technologies.

By combining LG Chem’s industrial and technological expertise with IMM Credit Solution’s competencies in analyzing and discovering target companies, it is expected to provide a broader perspective on the overall ESG-related industries. It will also help to find investment opportunities from the initial stages of prospective companies.

To fast-track ESG management, LG Chem has selected and is fostering battery materials such as cathode materials; sustainable solutions such as biodegradable plastics; and e-mobility materials such as lightweight and digitalization as next-generation growth engines.

IMM Credit Solution is a wholly owned subsidiary of IMM PE, a leading private equity fund management company in Korea, and it has extensive investment experiences in EV materials and the chemicals industry, while being composed of experts with a wide network of relevant advisors, professionals, and companies.

With the aim of fostering advanced materials this year, LG Chem has decided to recruit hundreds of personnel regarding battery materials alone. It is currently in the hiring process.

The company is also looking to increase its cathode production capacity, which is a key part of battery materials, from 40,000 tons last year to 260,000 tons by 2026.

Furthermore, for the CTO R&D Center, it plans to hire over 100 new R&D personnel in eco-friendly products that include biodegradable plastics and sustainability such as carbon-neutral technologies.

LG Chem is continuing development of eco-friendly PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled) and biodegradable plastic products, and it aims at producing bio material-based PO (polyolefin), SAP (super absorbent polymer), and ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), etc. during the second half of this year.

Chief Executive Officer Shin Hak-Cheol said, “This investment will become a stepping stone for LG Chem to strengthen the ESG industrial ecosystem together with prospective SMEs and medium-sized corporations, and to continuously discover future growth engines”

LG Chem Makes Equity Investment in Chinese Copper Laminate Company ‘DeFu’

LG Chem is ramping up its value chain in the battery materials sector by taking an equity investment in the copper laminate business.

LG Chem will invest 40 billion won in an equity stake in China’s Jiujiang DeFu Technology (DeFu), which manufactures copper laminate that is a core part of secondary batteries, by investing approximately 40 billion won.

Copper laminate is a thin copper sheet measuring to about 1/15 the size of human hair, and it is a core material for EV batteries that is used in battery anode materials to make electric currents flow.

The thinner it is, the more it fills active materials in the anode to increase battery capacity. It is expected that demand will rapidly grow due to the explosive growth of the battery market.

DeFu is the third-ranked copper laminate manufacturer in China based on production capacity, and it produces ‘battery laminate,’ a copper laminate for secondary batteries, and copper laminates for printed circuit boards in electronic products.