Next up is another "Big Deal". This time it's between Hanwha and Samsung.
6년 前 '삼성-한화 빅딜' 마무리…한화, 삼성 보유지분 1조에 산다, 한화종합화학 지분 24% 인수 상장은 당분간 보류키로
www.hankyung.com
이후 현재까지 한화종합화학에 대해선 한화그룹 계열사가 75.2%의 지분을 갖고 있었는데, 이번에 삼성 몫을 모두 인수하면서 99.3%(한화에너지 51.7%, 한화솔루션 47.6%) 주주가 됐다. 한화 측은 "이번 지분 인수로 한화·삼성 빅딜 시즌1이 마무리됐다"며 "시즌2는 미래 전략 사업을 본격 추진해 석유화학 회사에서 지속
www.joongang.co.kr
한화와 삼성그룹 간 방위산업·화학계열 4개사 ‘빅딜’은 ‘선택과 집중’을 필요로 했던 양사 모두에 득이 됐단 평가 속에 6년 만에 마무리됐다. 2015년 빅딜 성사 이후 한화는 한화종합화학 성장과 함께 그룹 전체의 외형을 키우고 ‘방산 공룡’으로 거듭난 한편, 전자부문에 집중하게 된 삼성도 주목할 만한 성과를 가져오면서다. 전문가들은 양사의 주력 사업이
www.hankookilbo.com
This deal was initially started by the change of management of Samsung Group in the early 2010s. Lee Jae Yong, Samsung's new owner, CEO and Chairman was very keen on streamlining Samsung Group as a whole mostly by getting rid of non-core subsidiaries and divisions and focus on core corporate industries. One of the non-core business was aerospace and defence, which had a long history within Samsung was still a problematic child, what we call "chicken's ribs" in East Asia. It's values are too vague to be either discarded or kept. This was especially the case due to the fact that foreign investors weren't really pleased by the fact that a B2C business was involved in something like defence sector, which also is the exact reason Samsung Heavy Industries isn't involved with naval shipbuilding. Another business Samsung wanted to get rid of was their chemicals sector, which was profitable but was not as profitable and lucrative as their electronics divisoin. They wanted to expand their electronics division even more with the liquidity they would be able to secure by selling these divisions.
Anyways, around the same time, there was a company who was looking to strengthen and diversify their defence division, a complete opposite to Samsung, and that was Hanwha. Hanwha is a shortened name for "Korea Explosives" or Hanguk Hwayak, the original name of Hanwha when it was first founded. As the name suggests, Hanwha's primary business was the manufacturing of explosives, which was synonymous with getting involved in the defence industry as a munitions manufacturer at the time. They later expanded their business starting from 1964 and soon their non-defence sector grew in such scale that it dwarfed their defence sector. Even so, they never forgot their origins as an explosives manufacturer and have long been one of the two major suppliers of various munitions to the RoK Armed Forces, alongside Poongsan.
As it was clear that the interests of the two companies aligned, things progressed very quickly. In late 2014, a takeover deal was signed worth around $1.8 billion. Samsung Techwin, Samsung Thales, Samsung Total and Samsung General Chemicals were all merged with Hanwha. The newly acquired defence divisions formed the new heart of Hanwha's defence sector, which today is under the umbrella of Hanwha Defense, a subsidiary of Hanwha Aerospace. Both of these divisions were formed almost entirely through mergers.
Samsung Techwin consisted of three departments, which were aerospace gas turbines department, armored vehicle department and security solutions department. The first was originally part of Samsung Aerospace Industries I've mentioned above, which was spun off before the aerospace consolidation. Samsung Thales was, as the name suggests, a JV between Samsung and Thales and was one of the two major defence electronics manufacturer of Korea, the other being LIG Nex1 which itself was part of Geumsung Precision, which later became LG (LG is an acronym of Lucky Geumsung).
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Now after 8 years, the result of the deal seems to have been very positive for both sides. For Hanwha, they've expanded their manufacturing business hugely starting with this deal and created great synergies. These new manufacturing divisions are backed by the liquidity flow of their financial divisions but could also act as a buffer for any kind of financial crisis.
After the deal with Samsung, Hanwha took over 2 more companies to solidify their newly formed Aerospace and Defense division. The first was Doosan DST. Doosan DST was part of - you might have guessed it by now - Daewoo Heavy Industries which was merged with growing Doosan group after Daewoo Group's insolvency. The company was initially part of Doosan Infracore, famous as the manufacturer of K2 tank's engine for us military enthusiasts, which was later spun off as a ground defence division to be sold off. The rest of the Doosan Infracore was a general heavy machinery manufacturer which manufactured construction equipment, machine tools, engines etc. With the merger of Doosan DST, Hanwha combined it with the ground defence division of Hanwha techwin to form Hanwha Defense ground equipments division. Their currenrt porfolio ranges from K9 to AS-21 and various other ground vehicles. Another merger was the takeover of a US gas turbine components supplier EDAC, as well as the take over of around 20% stakes in PW's Singapore manufacturing facilities. With these mergers, Hanwha formed Hanwha Aero, later Hanwha Aerospace based on the gas turbine division of Samsung Techwin. They are currently involved in various aerospace turbomachinery, including rocket engines of the KSLV launch vehicles. They are also the system integration main contractor of the KSLV-II program and will be responsible as private supplier of the rockets from the 4th launch onwards.
Although Hanwha Defense started as Samsung Techwin and Hanwha's own defence divisions, their main portfolio comes from Doosan DST products.
KRE-075 SL first stage engines manufactured by Hanwha
All in all, Hanwha's aerospace and defence division is now the biggest MIC of Korea, their portfolio ranging from ground, air and space domains. Their corporate vision could be summed up as to become a "Korean LM" and for that, they needed to expand towards one last domain, the sea.