Hanwha Group has secured more than 9% equity in Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), becoming KAI's second-largest shareholder. Hanwha Group plans to inject an additional 500 billion won by the end of the year to raise its stake to 12%.
Hanwha Aerospace disclosed on the 16th that it expanded its KAI equity to 6.5%. Hanwha Systems also spent 125 billion won to secure 1.53% equity in KAI. Adding the 1.01% KAI equity held by Hanwha Aerospace USA brings Hanwha Group's total KAI equity to 9.04%. It is the second-highest stake after the Export-Import Bank of Korea (26.41%).
Hanwha Aerospace decided at a board meeting that day to invest an additional 500 billion won by the end of the year, raising its equity to 9.97%. If so, Hanwha Group's total KAI equity will exceed 12%.
Hanwha Group is rapidly increasing its KAI equity. When news of the initial KAI equity purchase was first disclosed in a business report in March, Hanwha Group's KAI equity stood at a total of 4.99%, consisting of Hanwha Aerospace at 3.4%, Hanwha Systems at 0.58%, and Hanwha Aerospace USA. Then, on May 4, it raised this to 5.09%, changed the purpose of the holding from "simple investment" to "management participation," and announced a plan to invest 500 billion won to secure something in the 8% range by the end of the year.
After that, it moved to buy equity two more times in May alone, expanding the total stake to 6.17% and then 7.22%, and on this day it surpassed 9%. It achieved its initial goal of securing something in the 8% range about a month ahead of schedule.
Hanwha Group is aggressively buying KAI shares to strengthen overseas export competitiveness in the space and aviation sectors and to build a related ecosystem. A Hanwha Group official said, "As global competition in the space industry, represented by SpaceX, intensifies, the domestic space and aviation market is limited in scale and development and operations competitiveness is constrained by overlapping investments by multiple corporations," and added, "If Hanwha and KAI combine their technologies and capabilities, inefficiencies will be eliminated and synergies will emerge, which could enhance the space and aviation industry's competitiveness at the national level."
In fact, SpaceX, the space company of Elon Musk, is expanding its competitiveness by raising funds from markets around the world. Listed on the Nasdaq in the United States on the 12th (local time), SpaceX saw its share price soar for two consecutive trading days, bringing its market capitalization to $2.52 trillion (about 3,803 trillion won) as of the 15th (local time). The funds SpaceX secured this time amount to $85.7 billion (about 130 trillion won). By contrast, the domestic space industry lacks private capital and government funding is minimal. This year's budget for the Korea AeroSpace Administration is only 1.1201 trillion won.
A Hanwha Group official said, "KAI's space business segment faces structural limits in independent financing and proactive market entry, so capabilities in the space industry need to be integrated into a single business structure with Hanwha," and added, "If Hanwha and KAI combine, it will be possible to build Korea's largest space industry value chain connecting launch vehicles, satellites, ground systems, and space services, and this could lead to strengthening space industry capabilities at the national level."