South Korean chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor has appointed the chairman of SK Holdings, Chey Tae-won, as its co-CEO.
He will lead Hynix together with Kwon Oh-chul, president of the chipmaker.
The appointment comes just after SK Telecom (SKT), a unit…
South Korean chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor has appointed the chairman of SK Holdings, Chey Tae-won, as its co-CEO.
He will lead Hynix together with Kwon Oh-chul, president of the chipmaker.
The appointment comes just after SK Telecom (SKT), a unit of SK Group, completed the acquisition of a 21% stake in Hynix for US$3bn.
According to local newspapers, there have been concerns about Chey’s ability to co-head the chipmaker after he was allegedly charged with embezzlement earlier this year.
SK Telecom, which is operating in the highly-saturated South Korean mobile market, invested in Hynix in an attempt to diversify its portfolio. In a statement to TelecomFinance, SK said: “SK Telecom sees Hynix as a new growth engine and plans to boost synergy between the semiconductor and telecommunications business.”
But following deal completion, Fitch Ratings downgraded SK Telecom’s and SK Broadband’s ratings, referring to a lack of significant operational synergy between SKT and Hynix, a weaker financial profile and higher business risk.
Meanwhile, it upgraded Hynix’s long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer default ratings (IDR) and senior unsecured ratings to ‘BB’ from ‘BB-‘.
“Notwithstanding limited operational synergy with SKT, the upgrades reflect Fitch’s view that Hynix will be an important asset for SKT given the chairman’s strong desire to expand into manufacturing,” said Alvin Lim, associate director at Fitch.
