[Announcement+] Koren Expands Vietnam Factory... Secures 18 Billion KRW Investment

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] Koren (CEO Jaeseon Lee), a company specializing in camera lens manufacturing, announced on the 10th that it has decided to conduct a paid-in capital increase to expand its Vietnam factory and production facilities.

Koren will raise approximately 18 billion KRW through a general public offering for forfeited shares after rights offering to existing shareholders. The record date for new share allocation is September 4, subscription for existing shareholders will be from October 13 to 14, and the payment date is October 22. The new shares are scheduled to be listed on November 3.

The funds from the capital increase will be used for expanding the Vietnam factory and production facilities. This is a preemptive investment for the production of smartphone camera lens modules, which will be in full swing from the second half of 2020. Additionally, the funds will be used to improve the financial structure and for operating capital.

A Koren representative stated, “Currently, the Vietnam factory is operating at 100% capacity, and we decided on this paid-in capital increase to expand the production facilities for smartphone camera lenses, which will begin mass production from the second half of this year. Through the expansion of the Vietnam factory facilities, we plan to increase the factory’s monthly production volume from 6 million units to approximately 13 million units.”

Koren develops and manufactures various lenses including camera lenses for mobile phones, lenses for fingerprint recognition devices, and CCTV lenses based on aspheric optical lens design and mass production technology. In the mobile phone camera lens market, Koren leads the market with design technology and mass production systems for a wide range of lens models, from low-resolution models of 300,000 pixels to high-resolution models exceeding 48 million pixels, as well as wide-angle lenses, telephoto lenses, depth lenses, and ToF lenses.

Meanwhile, Koren achieved an operating profit turnaround in 2018 and continued to maintain operating profits last year. Although sales were affected by COVID-19 in the first half of this year, the smartphone lenses currently under development will begin mass production from the third quarter, and performance improvement is expected to accelerate in the second half of the year.