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Doosan Group to generate over 60 pct of sales from overseas and will continue to look for M&A targets

Chairman Park Yong-hyun of Doosan Group said the group plans to achieve 24 trillion won in sales this year with 1.6 trillion won in net profits.
In his New Year’s address, the chairman said the economic prospects are not that optimistic, with bumps here and there, but the group should not be rattled so that it will able to keep its competitive power in all of its operations at home and abroad this year. The group expects 60 percent of its revenues for 2010 to come from abroad.
In order to achieve the objectives for this year, Park pointed out three major ways to go about pursuing its goals including selection, concentration and an improved corporate structure to be ready for the economic recovery in order to secure financial soundness.
He also called for the creation of synergy from the operation of the group’s overseas affiliates including Babcock, Bobcat and Skoda Power and maximize it through the effective management of those companies.
During his media conference held in Yentai, Shandong Province, China, he said he will see that the group lays a sound plan for its operations for another century as the group celebrated 113 years since its founding last year.
He said he chose to hold his first media conference since his inauguration as Doosan chairman in March 2009 in China to show that the group plans to focus on the expansion of its international operations in order to be a global concern.
Park said the group’s fortunes depend on its operations, in particular in China and Vietnam. Doosan Heavy has a wholly-owned subsidiary in China, while Doosan Infracore has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Vietnam.He explained that Vietnam is the biggest country among ASEAN member countries with abundant natural resources, manpower and in geographically key location in the region with annual average GDP growth of from four to five percent. China offers an extremely superb market to sell Korean goods in terms of geography and potential growth as seen from the fact that the country did not have any trouble securing its GDP growth despite the global economic slump sweeping the world last yThe chairman estimated that the group’s annual sales last year amounted to 22 trillion won with operating profit coming to 750 billion won, which he thinks are pretty results amid the global economic slowdown impacting K Park is counting on very much the group’s super technologies in the areas of soft water production and nuclear power generation, which will be supplemented through further M&As overseas. He said the group is ready to take over any foreign firms if they could provide synergy with other affiliates and at right prices. He said the group operates a special team for M&As made of 20 experts in the area including some from MacKenzie, with their eyes on possible target companies around the world and the group always can mobilize a cash fund of 2.5 trillion won.
Park emphatically denied rumors as untrue the group’s intention to take over Hynix Semiconductor or former Daewoo affiliates such as Daewoo Construction and Daewoo Shipbuilding. He said he told the group to set up a team to study various matters on Sejong City including government incentives, transportation and the cost of land after meeting with Prime Minister Chung Un-chan at a FKI meeting. nw

Chairman Park Yong-hyun of Doosan Group