Hyundai E&C Still Swinging

Change is in the air as former chairman Lee Myung-bak takes over as Chief Executive of the nation and company sets ambitious targets

"Creative Passion"was the key word in Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. President Lee Jong-soo's New Year's message to officers and workers of the company as he summarized his plans to achieve the company's goals for 2008. The target is the biggest in the company's history despite expected difficulties facing the construction industry due to a slowdown in the world economy.
"Hyundai E&C celebrates its 61st anniversary this year while facing huge changes both at home and abroad,"Lee said.
For one, Lee Myung-bak, former chairman of the company, has taken over as the chief executive of the nation. This should result in an intensifying of M&A activity, but President Lee expects the company will be able to take care of all the adversities in its way this year with the entire company working to grow into a global construction giant in its strategy to leave behind big imprints for its operation for the next hundred and more years.
Regarding new projects for this year, the CEO said the company will do all it can to grow as a global company in terms of capacity. Last year, the company won $3.9 billion worth of new construction projects overseas, but this year it aims at $4.2 billion, focusing on high value-added projects with high profitability. In January alone, the company clinched a $250 million project to build a hospital in Singapore and a $920 million fertilizer plant project in Qatar for a total of $1.17 billion in project orders won in the first month of the year, showing that the company will not have trouble meeting this year's overseas project orders target.
The company plans to enhance its technologies in many key areas of construction including plant, GTL (gas to liquids), oil and power generation, among others, in addition to harbors, bridges and reclamation and social overhead capital (SOC) projects to make it a top company in terms of technology.
On the role of large firms under the President Lee Myung-bak administration, he said Hyundai E&C is a company that has made a large contribution to the development of the national economy. The company undertook many SOC projects as a cornerstone of the economy and earned a lot of foreign currency when the country needed it. He said many SOC projects and private-investment projects will be launched during the new government's tenure. The company hopes to undertake many of those projects to do its share as a leading Korean builder.
On the projected Seoul-Busan Canal, the CEO said the company has already launched a special task force led by a managing director, which had a hand in forming a joint consultative body with other construction firms. They will assign a survey firm to analyze the profitability of the project soon. He said a report that the five big construction firms in the country would alone undertake the project is not true.
He said several large builders will lay the groundwork first and then bring in smaller companies in launching the huge project together. "We will prepare ourselves to be up to the task of the project without a hitch,"Lee said.
On the status of the domestic housing market, he said the company has been able to generate a lot of interest in its HillState brand apartment complexes through unique marketing and advertising strategies. The company worked hard to raise the level of satisfaction of its HillState apartment customers around the country, which led to the success of the brand. In detail, he said the designs of exteriors and interiors of those apartments in collaboration with foreign designers to differentiate them from other brands have made the success of the Hyundai E&C apartments possible.
This year, he said, the company plans to sell 14,000 housing units in the Seoul area and its vicinities. He said the company will not build many apartments in smaller areas, except in the Changwon and Ulsan areas, as the local economies would not be so good. But the company will be careful in setting up its plans and expected to do well, despite the sluggish economic conditions in the provincial regions in the country.
The company plans to win 12.4 trillion won worth of new construction projects both at home and abroad this year to bring its backlog of orders to 38.4 trillion won, enough work to last for the next 6 years.
Hyundai E&C President Lee has a habit of traveling overseas to spend the New Year and Chuseok holidays with Hyundai workers at the company's overseas jobsites ranging from Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Sri Lanka and Singapore. nw

President Lee Jong-soo of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co.