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Hanwha Ocean leads in post-acquisition performance among large M&A deals in Korea

Published: 22 Jul. 2025, 09:34

Hanwha Ocean's corporate logo [HANHWA OCEAN]

Hanwha Ocean has shown an overall leading business performance among companies bought in major merger and acquisition (M&A) deals over the past decade in Korea, industry data showed Tuesday.

Corporate tracker Leaders Index assessed in a recent report that 20 companies acquired with over 500 billion won ($361 million) by the country's top 30 business groups since 2015 have generally performed well in terms of shareholder value after being bought.

According to calculations by Leaders Index, the combined sales of the 20 companies jumped 40.3 percent from two years before their acquisitions to two years after the takeovers, from 33.96 trillion won to 47.62 trillion won.

Among them, Hanwha Ocean, previously known as Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, led in overall performance. The company's sales surged 140 percent from two years before being acquired to two years after the acquisition, from 4.49 trillion won to 10.78 trillion won.

The market capitalization also grew sharply after being acquired by Hanwha Group in 2023, from 2.47 trillion won to 11.44 trillion won.

Autonomous driving startup 42dot, acquired by Hyundai Motor Group in 2022, posted the highest equity growth rate. The company's equity expanded nearly 10-fold, from 24.6 billion won to 271 billion won.

Pan Ocean, formerly known as STX Pan Ocean, acquired by Harim Group in 2015, ranked first in market capitalization growth rate, surging from 156.8 billion won to 2.13 trillion won.

The largest M&A deal by value in the past decade was SK Group's 2020 acquisition of Intel's NAND business, renamed Solidigm, for 10.3 trillion won, followed by Samsung Electronics' 2017 purchase of Harman International for 9.3 trillion won.

Yonhap