Doosan Group is poised to see its share in the European small-sized excavator market surge to a double-digit figure by accelerating efforts to ramp up its presence. (Photo: Doosan Bobcat)

Doosan Business Group, which has restructured its operations since last year, is now in a final stage with final touches being put.

The business group has reorganized its structure into a simpler one through the past one year of disposing of subsidiaries and in-house mergers and stake changes.

In particular, under the umbrella of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, the business group’s flagship company, are Doosan Fuel Cell, to be nurtured as an eco-friendly company, and Doosan Bobcat, which serves as a cash cow company.

As Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction faced a liquidity crisis, caused by the government’s policy of weaning the nation off nuclear power and financial difficulties, Doosan Business Group began to conduct an organizational reshuffle in the second half of last year.

The business group had put on the block not only its real estate but also Neoplux, Doosan Solus, Mottrol BG and split sale of Doosan Infracore.

In the course of restructuring, the business group’s governance was simplified into a format of Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won and group owner family members’ owning Doosan Corp., which controls Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, which is the parent company of Fuel Cell and Doosan Bobcat.

The noteworthy thing of the restructuring is that Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has two subsidiaries — Doosan Fuel Cell, a hydrogen fuel cell maker, and Bobcat, the global No. 1 compact equipment maker.

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction received a 15.6 percent stake in Doosan Fuel Cell in free gifts from Doosan Corp.’s largest shareholders last December and also a investment in kind of a 14.7 percent stake, owned by Doosan Corp.

The steps have made Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction the biggest shareholder of Doosan Fuel Cell.

The reason for making Doosan Fuel Cell one of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction’s subsidiaries is that the latter aims to make the former as one of its future growth engines.

The government’s policy of weaning the nation off nuclear power and decarbonizing has buffeted Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction the severest, which is now badly needing new businesses.

Doosan Group has created new growth momentum by handing Doosan Fuel Cell, specializing in the hydrogen business, a future eco-friendly sector, to Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction plans to max out synergetic effects the company will have in exploring the eco-friendly business along with Doosan Fuel Cell.

Currently, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction is building the nation’s first hydrogen liquefaction plant at its headquarters in Changwon and the company is participating in green hydrogen production tasks using renewable energies on Jeju Island and in Donghae.

Doosan Fuel Cell is stepping on the gas to secure an upper hand in the power generation hydrogen fuel cell market by supplying a 50MW fuel cell system to a byproduct hydrogen power plant in Daesan.

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction plans to build an eco-friendly power generation line-up by making the most of fuel cell power generation technologies, owned by Doosan Fuel Cell.

It is also noteworthy that Doosan Bobcat, which was once under the umbrella of Doosan Infracore, is now put into the banner of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.

In a split sale, Doosan Infracore handed over the medium- and large-sized heavy equipment business to Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings, and Doosan Bobcat, which was under control of Doosan Infracore, was put into hands of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.

Doosan Bobcat, the world’s No. 1 compact equipment maker, is expected to serve as Doosan Group’s cash cow company. Doosan Group suffered difficulties, caused by its sagging business performance, shortly after Doosan Bobcat was acquired by the group for about 6 trillion won in 2007.

Doosan Bobcat has grown into a lucrative cash cow company which logged somewhere about 400 billion won in operating profit annually since 2015 on a consolidated basis.

In particular, the company chalked up 171.3 billion won in 2021 Q1 operating profit, the best-ever one in 10 years. Doosan Bobcat made Doosan Industrial Vehicle, which was spun off from Doosan Corp., into one of its subsidiaries. Doosan Industrial Vehicle is the Korean company mass producing forklifts.

The company, which commands a 54 percent share in the Korean forklift market, shows growth at an annual average rate of about 7 percent in the past five years.

Doosan Group has realigned its business portfolio with a focus on new businesses through harshest restructuring, a business source said.

But future-oriented eco-friendly businesses might not guarantee in a short period time the profitability the nuclear power business had once enjoyed, according to the source.