SK appoints 'core insider' to head battery business

By Kim Hyun-bin, Kim Yoo-chul

SK reinstated a member of the owner family to manage its battery business, mimicking its chief cross-town rivals' decisions to appoint trusted executives to manage their burgeoning battery businesses amid a strengthened focus on strategic alliances and joint ventures between battery suppliers and vehicle manufacturers.

The board committee of SK On, a battery subsidiary wholly owned by SK Innovation (SKI), appointed SK Group Senior Vice Chairman Chey Jae-won as chief executive on Friday. He is the younger brother of SK Chairman Chey Tae-won.

The SK battery unit said the newly-appointed CEO will be in charge of handling both external and internal affairs and navigate various growth strategies.

The appointment of the new CEO came a few days after the group's chairman admitted that the conglomerate was facing a lot of challenges to maintain the momentum of its battery business.

SK Group, one of the country's top business conglomerates, has invested heavily in battery-manufacturing facilities in China and the United States under an alliance with Ford. It's also on track to build a factory in Hungary.

"There is a lot of competition. Given SK's bullish moves in the growing battery business, swift and timely decisions are essential and this is the point that only the owner family can address," said an SK official. SK is a latecomer to the global battery market and trails Samsung SDI and market leader LG Energy Solution (LGES).

Chey Jae-won

The junior Chey's return to management also came eight years after being sentenced to three and a half years in prison for embezzlement. The younger brother had been stripped of all of his registered titles at the conglomerate in 2013 while his employment restriction was lifted in October of this year.

Company officials said the junior Chey was a "hidden force" in terms of laying some of the necessary groundwork for SK's battery business.

Recently, LGES named Vice Chairman Kwon Young-soo, the top confidante of LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, to lead the conglomerate's battery affiliate ahead of its planned blockbuster domestic initial public offering and in the wake a massive recall of electric vehicles manufactured by General Motors and Hyundai Motor using LG's batteries.

Samsung SDI promoted Jeon Young-hyun, also considered as one of the "core insiders" within Samsung, as vice chairman. Samsung officials said the promotion was attributed to Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong's growing focus on the battery business along with the semiconductor business.

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