Goseonga Shifts to Concentrated Surplus
Invests 630 Billion in Super-Gap Defense Industry
Hanwha Ocean, which marks its first anniversary on the 23rd, is undergoing a complete transformation. Thanks to aggressive investments, its value has increased more than fourfold, and it posted an earnings surprise in the first quarter of this year.
According to electronic disclosures and related industries on the 21st, Hanwha Ocean's market capitalization has grown from 1 to 2 trillion KRW in 2022, the year it signed the main acquisition contract with Hanwha Group, to 9.5584 trillion KRW as of the 20th. Within the group, it ranks second in market capitalization after Hanwha Aerospace (approximately 10.66 trillion KRW). As of the end of last year, Hanwha Ocean had about 8,900 employees, surpassing Hanwha Aerospace's approximately 6,800 and Hanwha Solutions' approximately 6,000.
The debt ratio, which soared to 1542% in 2022, has been maintained in the 200% range from the end of last year to the present, thanks to capital increases and management restructuring. Current liabilities, debts that must be repaid within a year, stood at 8.241 trillion KRW in the first quarter of this year, down 23% from 10.6725 trillion KRW the previous year.
On June 7th last year, Kim Dong-kwan, Vice Chairman of Hanwha Group, visited the Hanwha Ocean Geoje plant and greeted the employees. [Photo by Hanwha Ocean]
Hanwha Ocean succeeded in turning a profit in the third quarter of last year for the first time in 12 quarters (74.1 billion KRW) and recorded an operating profit of 52.9 billion KRW in the first quarter of this year. The market expects that with high-priced orders reflected in the results, the company will break its three-year streak of losses and post about 280 billion KRW in operating profit this year. Hanwha Ocean's order backlog at the end of the first quarter reached 127.347 trillion KRW. The stock price, which was 25,450 KRW at the beginning of this year, has risen 23% to around 31,250 KRW. This increase outperformed the KOSPI index, which rose 2.7% during the same period.
Kim Dong-kwan, Vice Chairman of Hanwha Group, joined Hanwha Ocean's board as a non-executive director to support overseas market expansion. Instead of restructuring, Kim is promoting management normalization through selective order intake and organizational improvement. At a press conference shortly after Hanwha Ocean's launch last year, he stated, "There are no plans for artificial restructuring at Hanwha Ocean."
As an extension of management restructuring efforts, Hanwha Ocean appointed Kim Jin-gi, former head of the Innovation TFT for Strategy at Hanwha Aerospace, as Executive Director in charge of management innovation in February. Born in 1968, Kim served as a director at SafeTech Research, a company specializing in the design and operation of virtual reality (VR) ship navigation simulator systems, until 2022.
Under the goal of becoming a "super-gap maritime defense company," Hanwha Ocean plans to invest 42% (632.1 billion KRW) of the 1.5 trillion KRW capital increase funds into the defense sector. The investment will be carried out over three years starting this year, with 432.4 billion KRW allocated for this year.
To enter the U.S. military MRO market, Hanwha Ocean established the U.S. subsidiary "USA Holdings" at the end of last year and is in acquisition talks with Australian shipbuilding and defense company Austal, which designs, builds, and delivers vessels to the Australian and U.S. navies. USA Holdings and the joint venture "Hanwha Future Proof," co-invested 50/50 by Hanwha Solutions and Hanwha Aerospace, also established the shipping company "Hanwha Shipping." In just one year, the company, which previously only built ships, has expanded its business territory to shipping and MRO.
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