Delivery Hero Korea indicted under fair trade law

Regenerative, personalized skin care leverage microbiome, genetic information, probiotics and stem cell

Hyundai Capital Services Inc., South Korea's leading auto finance company, said Tuesday that its has issued global green bonds worth $600 million. The five-year bonds, which were sold to overseas investors, carry an annual interest rate of 1.25 percent, or the yield on five-year US Treasurys plus a spread of 92.5 basis points. The interest rate is 37.5 basis points lower than the guidance rate and the lowest-ever rate that Hyundai Capital has offered to offshore investors. Hyundai Capital sai

Mercedes-Benz Korea has requested a Seoul court cancel a multibillion-won fine imposed on the company for manipulating diesel emissions in the country, judicial sources said Tuesday. The German carmaker filed a lawsuit against the environment ministry in October with the Seoul Administrative Court, seeking the cancellation of a 77.6 billion-won ($69.3 million) fine over its emission manipulation, the sources said. Details on the upcoming hearing schedules have yet to be disclosed. As for the

South Korea's ICT ministry said Tuesday it will invest 2.85 trillion won ($2.55 billion) until 2025 for the maintenance and replacement of aged and messy overhead electrical and telecommunications cables across the country. Over five years, the ministry plans to spend 1.4 trillion won for cable maintenance, while investing 1.45 trillion won to put them underground, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT. The move comes after the country spent 2.6 trillion won for cable maintenance in aro

South Korea said Tuesday it has teamed up with the mobile giant Kakao Corp. to provide local consumers with information on restaurants that have strictly followed sanitary guidelines to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The service offers locations of restaurants that have employees wear protective masks at all times and provide separate utensils for communal dishes and pots, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Kakao operates South Korea's most popular mo

Over 66 percent of South Koreans used over-the-top (OTT) media, or video streaming services, last year amid the stay-at-home trend driven by the pandemic, a survey showed Tuesday. South Korea's OTT usage rate stood at 66.3 percent in 2020, compared with 52 percent the previous year, according to a survey of 6,029 people over the age of 13 by the country's media regulator, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC). YouTube was the most popular OTT service here, with its usage rate at 62.3 perce

All eyes are on what companies would be on the shopping list of Samsung Electronics, after the tech giant’s announcement last week captured the attention among industry officials and market watchers.　 Multiple chip-related companies have emerged as potential acquisition targets for the South Korean tech giant, according to market watchers. Dominant speculation suggests that Samsung is likely to be looking for a company that is related to the automotive chip business, or one that is corr

Posco International aims to take 20 percent of the world market for automotive motor cores, kicking off its auto parts business in earnest this year, the company said Monday. In its investor relations presentation Thursday, the general trading company unveiled new plans and targets for its motor core products, produced by its subsidiary Posco SPS (Steel Processing & Service). Motor cores are used in generating electricity within a motor, and have a wide range of applications, from autom

AstraZeneca’s viral vector vaccine had 62 percent efficacy against some 8,900 clinical candidates aged 42.2 on average, according to Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on Monday. The ministry is running a three-leg review of each COVID-19 therapy or vaccine that has applied for emergency use in Korea. So far, Celltrion’s antibody therapy, AstraZeneca’s viral vector vaccine and Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA vaccines have made the applications, in that order. The Dr

New and existing employees at South Korean gaming giant Nexon have been given a generous pay boost as part of a drive to attract talent amid the coronavirus outbreak, the company said Monday. Nexon said it raised the annual starting salary of new developers and other staffers who joined the company starting this year to 50 million won ($44,722) and 45 million won, respectively. The average starting salary of university graduates at a company with 500 or more employees is 344.7 million won,

South Korean carmakers' sales rose 4.8 percent last month from a year earlier helped by strong demand for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) amid the COVID-19 pandemic, industry data showed Monday. The five carmakers in South Korea -- Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Corp., GM Korea Co., Renault Samsung Motors Corp. and SsangYong Motor Co. -- sold a combined 597,213 vehicles in January, up from 569,929 units a year ago, according to data from the companies. Their domestic sales jumped 17 percent to 116,270 u

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, 60, was chosen Monday as the new chief of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and will succeed incumbent Chairman Park Yong-maan. For the first time, the KCCI is to be led by a figure at the helm of one of the so-called Big Four chaebol -- Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG. SK Group is South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate in terms of assets, as of 2020.　 Chey’s appointment was also seen as a signal that the country’s industries are

Innocean Worldwide, the advertising subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group, has appointed a new global chief strategy officer, in a move to add fuel to its global growth and digital transformation, officials said Monday. This marked the first time that the company has created a top post to supervise its global strategy and appointed an outside expert for the role. The company named Nicholas Kim, 50, a Korean American who formerly served as chief strategy officer at Publicis Groupe in New York, for

LG Energy Solution has the most patents for electric vehicle batteries that are officially registered with the patent offices of five major countries, industry data showed Monday. According to the global patent information service WIPS ON, LG Energy Solution’s EV battery patents -- excluding utility patents -- registered with patent offices in Korea, Japan, China, Europe and the US amounted to 23,610, the largest among battery companies in the world. LG Energy Solution was followed by