Samyang Holdings sells LCD filter material business

[Courtesy of Samyang Holdings]

South Korea’s Samyang Holdings Corp. has recently sold its LCD filter material business amid the overall slump in the LCD industry, which experienced historically low panel prices last year.

Samyang Holdings aims to improve profitability by redirecting its resources towards high-growth areas such as batteries and other new materials.

According to sources on Tuesday, Samyang Holdings completed the sale of Samyang Corp.’s electronics material-related business to a display product manufacturing company. The deal value is reported to be around 20 billion won ($15.35 million). However, the holding company decided to leave the photoinitiator business, which is a key material for photosensitive resins used in displays and semiconductor circuit processes, with Samyang Corp.

The divested business is part of EMS PU, which studies and develops core materials for electronic materials. The business covers column spacers that maintain a constant gap between the color filter substrate and the TFT substrate in TFT-LCDs, and overcoats used to flatten and shield RGB pixels in LCD color filters.

Samyang Corp., well-known for its food business involving sugar, starch syrup, flour, and edible oil, is also actively engaged in chemical sectors such as engineering plastics (EP) and ion exchange resins. In 2005, the company entered the electronics material industry by acquiring ADMS, a manufacturer of organic chemical materials for LCDs. The decision to streamline its LCD filter material business is attributed to the deteriorating conditions in the market. In September of last year, the price of a 65-inch LCD TV panel plummeted to $107, marking a significant decline from $288 observed in July 2021.

“We have made the decision to withdraw from the photoresist business to focus and concentrate our efforts. Moving forward, our plan is to concentrate on next-generation semiconductors, battery materials, and environmentally friendly materials to create growth opportunities,” said a spokesperson of Samyang Holdings.