S-Oil Corp., South Korea's No. 3 oil refiner, said Thursday its net income surged by elevenfold in the third quarter from a year earlier, driven by strong sales of petrochemical and lube base oil products. Net income came to 334.5 billion won ($285 million) in the July-September period, compared with 30.3 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit reached 549.4 billion won, swinging to black from an operating loss of 9.2 billion won the previous year.

Samsung Electronics Co. on Thursday reported strong third-quarter earnings on the continued robust performance of its key semiconductor business. Its net profit rose 31.3 percent from a year earlier to 12.29 trillion won ($10.5 billion) in the July-September period, the world's largest memory chip and smartphone vendor said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit jumped 28 percent in the third quarter to 15.82 trillion won, the largest since the third quarter of 2018. Sales hit a quarterly re

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for an absolute majority of businesses in South Korea, with their workforces taking up nearly 83 percent of all corporate employees, data showed Thursday. As of 2019, smaller firms in Asia's fourth-largest economy numbered 6.89 million, up 3.8 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 99.9 percent of all companies here, according to the data from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. The number of their employees stood at 17.44 million, up 2

INDUSTRY AWARDS / INVESTMENT ATTRACTION

Hyundai Mobis, the auto parts making affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, has adopted a “Green Acceleration” strategy to promote environmentally friendly business management for future generations and the Earth, the company said Wednesday. According to Hyundai Mobis, it is working to reduce carbon emissions while managing harmful substances in the overall process of manufacturing, to maximize the positive effects to support the environment. Already having a portfolio of core auto p

Starbucks Korea will provide free barista training to as many as 200 young job seekers next year, as part of a government project to tackle youth joblessness. The coffee chain inked a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Employment and Labor on Wednesday to participate in the ministry’s “Youth Employment Support Project.”  The project aims to promote companies to provide work experiences and various job training programs for young job seekers. Starbucks is

Never trust a skinny chef. The sentiment behind this tongue-in-cheek reference to a chef’s inability to resist his own delicious food applies to most professions, including game developers. Nexon’s Blue Archive, an anime-style role-playing game, immediately stole the hearts of anime fans after its February release in Japan, even ranking as the most popular game on both Google Play and App Store. Perhaps the game’s success was a predestined one, considering it was developed b

Kolmar Korea, a cosmetics and health care company based in Seoul, has made a strategic investment in a beauty platform operator in a bid to target Millennial and Generation Z consumers in the local beauty market. According to its announcement on Wednesday, the company purchased an 11 percent stake in Pawcompany. Established in 2003, Pawcompany operates online beauty community Powder Room. The platform currently has 3.7 million members and has held marketing projects with 5,400 beauty firms t

South Korean biotech firm Genencell said Wednesday that the company received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for mid- and late-stage trials of its COVID-19 treatment candidate ES16001. ES16001 is an oral COVID-19 drug candidate made with natural ingredients extracted from the leaves of Elaeocarpus sylvestris native to Korea. Genencell has developed the treatment candidate in collaboration with the College of Life Sciences at Kyung Hee University. Genencell currently plans

MARKETING AWARDS / GOLD PRIZE SK INNOVATION By Lim Su-kil Head of SK Innovation Value Creation Center SK Innovation pursues the “Green Balance 2030” initiative to seek growth through an eco-friendly business management strategy. We would like to express our gratitude to all who supported the public relations campaign “SK Innovation Going ESG.” As the ESG paradigm is becoming mainstream across the globe, a company that neglects environmental issues, hesitates to walk t

LG Chem Ltd., South Korea's leading chemical company, said Wednesday it will build a battery separator production plant in Hungary with Japanese chemical giant Toray Industries Inc. as part of efforts to expand its presence in the European market. Under the 50:50 joint venture deal, the two companies will invest over a combined 1 trillion won ($854.7 million), aiming for annual production of 800 million square meters of separators, the key component used in rechargeable batteries, by 2028, LG C

Between last-mile mobility innovation and public nuisance, Seoul regulators’ lackadaisical policy a textbook example of how innovation gets killed

CORPORATE PR AWARDS / GRAND PRIZE LG Energy Solution By Sung Hwan-doo Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Affairs Group I want to say many thanks to the judges and members of The Korea Herald for this award. This year, LG Energy Solution made a new leap forward. And we are extremely happy to receive the Corporate PR Grand Prize at this crucial time when we are conveying our image as a company to the public for the first time. The secondary cell business has undoubtedly become one of

LG Display Co., South Korea's major display panel maker, said Wednesday that its third-quarter net income surged 4,067.5 percent from a year earlier to 463.5 billion won ($396.1 million), largely driven by strong demand and profitability of its OLED business. Operating income jumped 221.8 percent to 528.9 billion won in the three months ending in September, 17.3 percent lower than previously expected. Sales rose 7.2 percent on-year to 7.22 trillion won. Continued growth in pandemic-led demand

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was behind Moderna’s decision to supply the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured here to the Korean government, industry sources claimed Wednesday. The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced Tuesday it had authorized the domestic supply of 2.4 million doses to be finished at Samsung Biologics’ factory in Songdo, Incheon, from next month. The biopharmaceutical affiliate of Samsung has a deal with the US vaccine firm to &ldqu