'Management Dispute' Korea Zinc Achieves Credit Rating 'AA+'

Korea Enterprise Data and NICE Credit Rating Achieve 'AA+, Stable' Ratings

Choi Yoon-beom, Chairman of Korea Zinc

Korea Zinc has been recognized for its excellent business sustainability and financial stability. In South Korea, excluding some financial companies and public corporations, there are only about 10 companies with a long-term credit rating of 'AA+' or higher.

On the 20th, Korea Zinc announced that it received a long-term credit rating of 'AA+' from two of the three major domestic credit rating agencies (Korea Ratings and NICE Investors Service). The rating outlook is 'stable.' Additionally, the company commercial paper also received the highest rating of 'A1.'

This signifies that Korea Zinc is a top-tier company in terms of financial stability, cash generation capability, and business sustainability. As of the end of the first half of this year, on a consolidated basis, Korea Zinc holds a total cash amount (cash and cash equivalents + short-term deposits in financial institutions + short-term investment assets) of 2.1277 trillion KRW. Furthermore, in the first half of this year alone, Korea Zinc demonstrated outstanding cash generation by earning a total of 831.1 billion KRW in cash from operating activities producing and selling zinc, lead, silver, and other products.

Moreover, as of the end of the first half of this year, Korea Zinc maintains a sound financial structure with a debt ratio of 36% on a consolidated basis, and particularly, a low dependence on borrowings at only 10%. Even if the company repays all its borrowings with its cash holdings, nearly 800 billion KRW in cash would remain, indicating abundant liquidity.

A Korea Zinc official stated, "We will continue to maintain our status as a 'top-tier company' by sustaining excellent cash generation and a stable financial structure." Based on this, the company plans to "steadily promote the new business strategy 'Troika Drive' and achieve a second leap forward as a global No.1 eco-friendly energy and materials company, surpassing the No.1 position in non-ferrous metals."