LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo looks into a clothing care system of a future connected car as he toured LG Electronics Design Management Center.

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, 43, has been in office for three years. Under the stewardship of Chairman Koo, the business group, including LX, which is to be spun-off soon, has seen the capitalization of the group’s listed companies surge from 93.6 trillion won on June 29, 2018 to about 158.1 trillion won on June 18, 2021, a jump of 65 trillion won during the three-year period.

Electronics, chemical and telecom units, mainstay subsidiaries of the business group, each have logged an annual average growth of about 1 trillion won.

LG Electronics, which posted 61.34 trillion won in 2018 sales, has seen its sales peak to 63.2 trillion won last year.

LG Chem has seen sales jump from 63.2 trillion won to 30.07 trillion won, surpassing the 30 trillion won threshold for the first time in its corporate history. LG Uplus has seen sales soar from 11.72 trillion won to 13.41 trillion won. LG Display, which suffered successive losses, successfully rebounded.

The panel maker is poised to achieve the feat of surpassing 30 trillion won in sales for the first time in its corporate history. LG Display’s rebound is owed to Chairman Koo’s strong drive to focus on the OLED, battery and mechatronics segments.

Chairman Koo’s strategy of “choice and concentration” is designed to remove segments that turned out to be chronically underperforming, so the group can turn its attention to exploring new growth engines in areas such as AI and bio.

Chairman Koo disposed of LG Electronics’ smartphone business, which suffered in losses in operating profit for the 23rd consecutive quarter. In return, the business group established an AI research institute and hired globally recognized experts such as Prof. Lee Hong-nak of the University of Michigan, appointed to be top AI scientist of the AI research institute. LG is engaged in aggressive M&As in industry robot, AI and big data segments.

Since he took office, Chairman Koo stressed the need for making massive investments through the benchmarking of global M&A success stories.

Major strategic investments subsidiaries of the business group have made since 2018 amount to more than 3 trillion won.

In 2018, LG Electronics acquired ZKW, an Austrian automotive lighting company, for 1.44 trillion won while LG Uplus took over CJ Hello for 800 billion won in 2019.

LG Electronics invested for a 51 percent stake in LG Magna e-Powertrain, a joint-venture with Canada-based Magna International.

LG Chem acquired U.S. auto adhesive maker Uniseal for 150 billion won, and bought soluble OLED technology from DuPont, evaluated at 300 billion won. LG Electronics took over Robotstar, a local industry robot company, for 80 billion won and Alphonso, a content big data startup for 87 billion won.

An industry source said as LG Group’s subsidiaries secured more than 10 trillion won worth of cash assets, they are predicted to seek massive M&As in AI, robotics and bio sectors.

LG Group’s investment control tower is LG Corp., headed by LG Chairman Koo. LG Corp. President Hong Bum-shik in charge of LG’s management strategies, former president of Bain & Company Korea, was hired by Chairman Koo.

Hong is responsible for designing the groups whole investment strategies and coordinating actual action processes among subsidiaries.

A view of LG Twin Tower in Youido, Seoul. (Photos: LG Group)