Hyosung’s annual operating profit surpassed the 1 trillion won mark in 2016 for the first time in the company’s history. On Feb.2, Hyosung, S. Korea’s largest synthetic fiber manufacturer, said in a regulatory filing that that it last year brought in 11.9 trillion won in sales and 1.16 trillion won in operating profit. Its operating profit margin also hit a record high of 8.5 percent.
Hyosung said all of its business divisions, including textiles, industrial materials, heavy industry and chemicals, performed better last year than they did in 2015. In particular, its spandex and tire code businesses were the two biggest contributors: 30.7% of the record-breaking operating profit came from the textiles division, 21.5% from the industrial materials division, 18.6% from the heavy industries division and 14.5% from the chemicals division.
Having built a global production network that currently spans Vietnam, China and America, Hyosung Group focused on developing new products and increasing sales under the leadership of President Cho Hyun-Joon. And such an effort has paid off.
Since Cho Hyun-Joon took over the company’s heavy industries division in 2014, the heavy industries division has actively broke into the Middle East, India and North Africa and won a number of lucrative overseas deals, thereby jacking up its profitability.
And Hyosung worked hard to improve its financial structure. As a result, the company’s financial soundness improved appreciably.
Hyosung has spent a significant portion of its profit to pay off debts (worth 735.7 billion won) over the years, therefore lowering the debt to equity ratio to 267.2 percent on a consolidated basis, the lowest since Hyosung adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS Standards). The debt to equity ratio of Hyosung Corporation also dipped 36.4 percent y-o-y to a record low of 124.5 %.
