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China's businesses have been stepping up their acquisition of Korean firms specializing in the cutting-edge display products, including LCDs (liquid crystal displays) and PDPs (plasma display panels).
Orion Electric, a Korean firm undergoing court-receivership procedures, said Thursday that it is in negotiations with three or four Chinese electronics firms to sell off a stake in its subsidiary, Orion PDP, so that the parent firm can shore up its funds for turnaround.
Sources close to the firm said Orion Electric has a 90.9 percent stake in Orion PDP, and sale price for the stake is estimated at around W30 billion.
Orion Electric's announcement is troublesome, as Korea's core cutting-edge technology companies are sold off, one by one, to Chinese investors. Earlier this year, Hynix Semiconductor sold its TFT-LCD subsidiary, called Hydis, to the Beijing Orient Electronics group.
There has been only one PDP production line operating in China, which is invested by the Japanese firm Matsushita, but once the Orion PDP sale is completed, the Korean firm would become China¡¯s first PDP production company.
An official at Orion PDP said that at first, the firm proceeded on a proposal to set up a joint venture in China with a Chinese partner firm, but the recent negotiations are to sell off the entire firm.
The official said that the firm never considered courting other Korean PDP firms, such as Samsung SDI or LG Electronics, because those companies have already invested heavily in the production of display products.
Orion¡¯s PDP operations bounced back to a net profit in July, and the firm expects to take in W40 billion in sales this year.
(Yi In-yul, yiyul@chosun.com )
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