SK Group become South Korea's second largest corporate group by asset size in 2021, with Hyundai Motor Group falling one place to the No. 3 position.
According to the Fair Trade Commission on April 27, SK Group's total assets stood at 292 trillion won, surpassing Hyundai Motor Group, which recorded 257.8 trillion won, to come in second.
Until the early 2000s, Hyundai and SK competed for third and fourth places.
In 2003, SK Group ranked third in total assets, one step ahead of Hyundai Motor Company, but the ranking reversed again the following year.
Then, as the GS Group split from the LG Group, which was second in the business hierarchy at the time, the business hierarchy continued from 2006 to Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG, and Lotte.
It is evaluated that the management strategy of Chairman Chey Tae-won, who made large-scale investments in future food industries such as semiconductors, batteries, and biotechnology, was effective in SK Group's rise to second place.
SK Hynix's operating and investment assets increased by 20.9 trillion won due to the increase in semiconductor sales and the acquisition of Intel's NAND division, increasing the total amount of SK Group's assets.
Chairman Chey acquired Hynix Semiconductor in 2012. Hynix, which was purchased at the time for 3.42 trillion won, has grown to a current market capitalization of 78,624.3 billion won.
SK hynix achieved sales of 12,155.7 billion won, operating profit of 2.85 trillion won, and net profit of 1.982.9 billion won in the first quarter of this year, following 30.3 trillion won in exports last year.
After that, SK Group acquired K Materials and SK Siltron in 2015 and 2017, respectively, to create synergy effects in the existing core businesses of energy and chemical, information and communication and semiconductor business.
In 2018, the group invested 4 trillion won in shares in Kioxia, Japan, the world's second largest NAND company, and in 2020 took over the Intel NAND business for 10.3 trillion won, leaping to become a global company in the memory semiconductor field.
In addition, SK Group established SK On and SK Earth On by dividing the battery and oil development divisions from SK Innovation. Next, the group divided the power and steam supply division from SK Chemicals and established SK Multi-Utility, increasing its assets by about 7.9 trillion won.
Starting with SK Biopharmaceuticals in 2020, SK Group listed SK Bioscience, SK IE Technology, and SK REITs in succession in 2021.
SK Group announced that it will continue to invest in advanced materials, bio, eco-friendliness, and digital technology as its four core businesses and make intensive investments to make it a company with a market capitalization of KRW 140 trillion by 2025.
