Aggressive Investment to Secure Growth in the IT Sector To attain the corporate goal of "Maximizing Happiness of Customers, Shareholders and Employees," SK Group has realigned its management system to boost the synergic effects of autonomous management that centers on a board of directors who share corporate culture and brand name. At a CEO seminar held in March this year, SK Group has proclaimed that the company will make every effort to become a corporate group driven by a board of directors true to its name, by adopting corporate governance with outside appointed board of directors. In accordance with this objective, SK Group has reshaped boards of directors in the major listed companies of SK Telecom, SK Networks, SKC and SK Chemical. As a result, SK Group today is proud to have more than half of the boards of directors at these companies filled with outside board directors, even though the law stipulates that only a quarter of the board need be assigned to outside directors. Moreover, the company decided to expand such a move to other listed companies and even to non-listed affiliates that are not required by law to adopt such a management system. This transformation of SK Group's management has awarded the company recognition for achievement from worldrenowned credit rating agencies. They say that the company has presented a new role model for transparent and autonomous management and became the only Korean business conglomerate where a top executive speaks directly to overseas shareholders. Investment for Future Growth In the meantime, SK Group announced earlier this year that it would invest over 5 trillion won this year, a 22 percent rise from last year. The company said that the reason behind the decision to make such a large investment as compared with last year is that the year 2005, which has seen its normalization of management, is an important year wherein the company has to create the foundation for long-term growth. In terms of revenue, however, the company said that it has set a modest goal of attaining 57 trillion won, an increase of 2 trillion won from the previous year. By doing so, the company explained, it can maximize investment and raise the competitive edge in core businesses, rather than external growth. The company said that such a decision to boost investment was made possible through the request made by Choi Taewon, chairman of SK Group, who said, "Based on our achievements of last year, the largest-ever in the company's history despite unfavorable management surroundings, let's actively make investment so that every company can raise its global competitiveness in core businesses." High-Tech IT Sector, a Key Area for Future Growth Of the total 5 trillion won to be invested this year, SK Group has allocated 2.2 trillion for its energy and chemical operations while 2.5 trillion won was earmarked for IT related undertakings, and the rest for logistics services. Having labeled this year to be the groundbreaking year for "New SK," the company has selected completion of normalizing management as one of key areas to be focused upon. To this end, SK Group plans to terminate as soon as possible a debt workout program for SK Networks, along with the restructuring of some affiliates by means of mergers and acquisitions. In addition, the company plans to build manufacturing facilities for OLEDs and actively carry out operations related to high-tech materials, such as polyamide films and next-generation batteries. Today, the Organic Light Emission Displayer (OLED) is attracting much attention as a high-tech electronic display device, while polyamide films are very fashionable as core components of IT products. Along with this, SK Group will be striving to develop and strengthen new services and ensure that its major ventures such as satellite DMB service can deliver good results. Through this, the company said that it can better cope with the advent of digital convergence in the "ubiquitous world."