Tag: KT&G

  • KT&G Builds Factory in Kazakhstan

    KT&G Builds Factory in Kazakhstan

    Image: KT&G

    KT&G is building a new factory in Kazakhstan to meet global demand for its overseas business.

    In October 2023, KT&G held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new plant in Almaty and began building a “hybrid production base” for overseas sales on a site of about 200,000 square meters. When the plant is completed in 2025, Kazakhstan will become a production hub for supplying products to Europe, the CIS and the rest of Eurasia.

    In early 2023, KT&G established a sales and manufacturing subsidiary in Kazakhstan to grow its business in Eurasia and has been focusing on establishing a local business foundation. Currently, the company employs more than 150 locally recruited employees, and the completion of the plant is expected to create additional local employment as it establishes a complete local value chain from production to marketing and sales.

    The establishment of KT&G’s new factory in Kazakhstan is part of a growth investment aimed at achieving the company’s vision of becoming a “global top-tier” player. KT&G has announced its goal to increase the proportion of sales from overseas business to more than 50 percent of its total revenue by 2027 through future growth investments.

    As of the third quarter, KT&G’s overseas cigarette sales amounted to 163.2 million pieces, the largest sales volume of the company for the second consecutive quarter.

  • KT&G Rejects Offer for Ginseng Business

    KT&G Rejects Offer for Ginseng Business

    Image: Photobeps

    KT&G rejected an offer by Flashlight Capital Services (FCP) to purchase its ginseng business, reports Business Korea.

    On Nov. 8, KT&G sent a response to FCP’s letter of intent. “We will do our best to foster the three core businesses, including health functional foods,” it stated.

    “Last year, we announced a mid-to-long-term growth strategy to foster health functional foods along with overseas cigarettes and NGP [next-generation products] as our three core businesses, and we will do our best to achieve these goals,” a KT&G official emphasized.

    On Oct. 14, KT&G also issued a statement dismissing FCP’s acquisition proposal, stating, “FCP’s acquisition proposal was unilaterally disclosed without any discussion with us.”

    In its letter of intent, FCP offered to acquire all KGC’s shares for nearly KRW2 trillion ($1.47 billion), which represents a 50 percent premium over the enterprise value mentioned by some analysts during KT&G’s 2023 investor day.

    Industry insiders believe the likelihood of the transaction being completed is low, given KT&G’s shareholding structure.

  • KT&G Reports Results and Presents Growth Plan

    KT&G Reports Results and Presents Growth Plan

    Image: KT&G

    KT&G reported consolidated revenue for the third quarter of KRW1.64 trillion and operating profit KRW415.7 billion, up 2.2 percent year-on-year.

    The growth trend centered on the main business continued in the third quarter. Revenue of the three companies core growth businesses—overseas cigarettes, next generation products (NGP) and health-functional foods exceeded KRW1 trillion, achieving the highest-ever quarterly revenue, while the revenue of the tobacco business also reached a record high.

    Revenue in the tobacco business reached KRW1.048 trillion, up 7.7 percent from the same period last year, while operating profit grew 23.6 percent to KRW333 billion, outpacing the revenue increase.

    In the tobacco business, growth was particularly strong in overseas cigarettes. In the third quarter, revenue of the overseas cigarette business reached KRW419.7 billion, up 30.5 percent year-over-year, setting a new record in revenue for two consecutive quarters, while sales volume and operating profit also increased by 10.1 percent and 167.2 percent, respectively, achieving growth trifecta in sales volume, revenue and operating profit.

    While reporting its financial results, KT&G also announced a plan to achieve 15 percent return on equity (ROE) by 2027, to increase cash returns and to repurchase and cancel shares.

    Since the appointment of CEO Kyung Man Bang in March, KT&G has been working to increase its competitiveness and upgrade the group’s financial structure. In particular, the company has been prioritizing the group’s ROE enhancement project, which is based on profitability improvement, asset efficiency and financial optimization.

    Under the new corporate value-up plan, shareholder return will also be expanded in 2024. KT&G’s board of directors resolved to repurchase 1.35 million shares with KRW150 billion of the financial resources secured through the securitization of non-core and low-yield assets and to cancel them in full within the year.

    “We are in full swing in creating results by strengthening our business structure centered on our core business and upgrading our financial structure to become a ‘global top-tier’ company,” KT&G wrote in a press note. “We will continue to focus our resources and capabilities on our three core businesses to strengthen our intrinsic competitiveness and return the fruits of our achievements to our shareholders to achieve true value-up where corporate value and shareholder value grow together.”

  • KT&G Remains Committed to Ginseng Business

    KT&G Remains Committed to Ginseng Business

    Photo: KT&G

    The Ginseng business remains a key part of KT&G’s plan for growth, the South Korean cigarette manufacturer said after receiving a bid for its Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC) unit.

    On Oct. 13, Singapore-based activist fund Flashlight Capital Partners offered nearly KRW2 trillion ($1.47 billion) for KGC, which is 50 percent higher than the enterprise value analyst estimates mentioned at KT&G’s 2023 investor day.

    Flashlight Capital Partners believes that KT&G significantly undervalues its ginseng business and that the ginseng-tobacco pairing does not work.

    According to The Korea Herald, KT&G called Flashlight’s bid a “unilateral” offer. “The acquisition offer was unilaterally released without any discussion with the company,” KT&G wrote in a statement on Oct. 14. “We will look into the letter of intent sufficiently.”

    In the announcement, however, KT&G also stressed that KGC is a key part of its plan to nurture future growth drivers. It said it will put in all efforts to achieve the goals set under a mid-term business plan released last year.

    The plan, announced in January 2023, involves bolstering its investment and sales in three key areas: next-generation nicotine products, overseas businesses and KGC health supplement products.

    The activist fund has been pressuring KT&G to spin off its ginseng unit since 2022, citing low performance and undervaluation. KT&G’s board has argued that a spinoff may lead to a loss of synergy for both KT&G and KGC.

  • Flashlight Offers to Buy KT&G’s Ginseng Business

    Flashlight Offers to Buy KT&G’s Ginseng Business

    Photo: Fan Chen

    Flashlight Capital Partners (FCP) wants to purchase KT&G Corp.’s Ginseng business. The activist investor, which is also a shareholder in KT&G, has submitted a letter of intent to acquire all shares of KT&G subsidiary Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC).

    FCP is offering KRW1.9 trillion ($1.4 billion), which is 50 percent higher than the enterprise value analyst estimates mentioned at KT&G’s 2023 investor day.

    FCP believes that figure significantly undervalues the business. “It’s like watching parents who downplay their own child,” said FCP Managing Partner Sanghyun Lee in a statement. “We see immense potential in the poor kid. We aim to develop Korea ginseng into a global brand, comparable to Manuka honey or Maotai.”

    Despite the growing demand for health food, KGC’s operating profit halved from KRW202.1 billion in 2019 to KRW103.1 billion in 2023, and KT&G’s guidance indicates further decline in 2024.

    FCP has argued that the tobacco-ginseng pairing was a “wrong marriage,” and that KGC’s value is not reflected in KT&G’s stock price at all. Since 2022, FCP has advocated for a horizontal spinoff of KGC, but KT&G’s board rejected the proposal in 2023.

    Lee compared KT&G’s stance on KGC as “Not good enough for me, but too good for others.” He emphasized the need for either a spinoff or sale of KGC and warned that “If KT&G’s board opposes our proposal without a proper rationale, it will only prove that they are serving the interests of management rather than those of the shareholders.”

    Headquartered in Singapore, FCP has repeatedly pushed for changes at KT&G. In recent years, it has pushed for a greater emphasis on smoking alternatives, more transparent procedures in filling the company’s leadership, and a new CEO pay structure.

  • KT&G Steps up Investment in Indonesia

    KT&G Steps up Investment in Indonesia

    Photo: KT&G

    KT&G will invest KRW600 billion ($454 million) and hire about 1,000 people in Indonesia. The company’s local operations will serve not only Indonesia but also the Middle East and other markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

    “KT&G chose Indonesia as the company’s center of production for the Asia-Pacific market,” KT&G Indonesia’s president director, Jeong Yun-sig, told JoongAng Daily. Indonesia is KT&G’s biggest market outside Korea, accounting for 22.6 percent of the tobacco company’s total exports as of 2023.

    KT&G entered Indonesia in 2011, when it bought a local tobacco company. As of 2023, the company had sold 9.55 billion cigarettes in the country, propelling it to the No. 4 spot among tobacco manufacturers in Indonesia, ahead of multinationals such as British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International.

     In April, KT&G broke ground for two additional Indonesian factories. Upon completion, company will have a production capacity in Indonesia of 35 billion cigarettes annually.

     “We have consistently invested in the Indonesian market, building a local R&D center and hiring experts for localization efforts,” Jeong Yun-sig said. “The localized version of Esse and new brands for the Indonesian market worked well for the company.”

  • Global Synergy

    Global Synergy

    Photos: KTI

    Stuart Buchanan discusses KT International’s partnership with KT&G.

    By Marissa Dean

    As the tobacco industry changes and evolves, companies are adapting in different ways. Recently, KT International (KTI) and KT&G entered into a manufacturing license agreement, allowing KTI to manufacture and distribute KT&G’s products in Europe.

    KT&G is a leading tobacco manufacturer in South Korea and the fifth largest in the world by sales volume, with an annual sales revenue of approximately KRW6 trillion ($4.5 billion). KTI, established in 2008, has built its reputation as one of Europe’s fastest-growing independent tobacco companies. The company has also earned recognition for its strong and credible footprint across Europe along with world-class production facilities within the European Union.

    The agreement between the two companies was signed on Oct. 20, 2023. Under the terms of the deal, KTI received exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute KT&G’s products within the EU region for three years. The two companies have agreed to a market entry plan aimed at expanding into strategic markets within the Western European region, with a specific focus on KT&G’s Esse products. Esse, a flagship brand of KT&G, is renowned for its premium quality and holds the distinction of being the world’s bestselling super-slim cigarette brand. While the two companies will initially focus on Esse products, the product range expansion will be discussed and announced in due course.

    Tobacco Reporter recently discussed the arrangement with Stuart Buchanan, chief commercial officer of KTI.

    KTI is one of only a few companies that uses a single facility for all its production needs.

    Tobacco Reporter: Your company, KTI, entered into a partnership agreement with KT&G, one of the world’s largest cigarette producers. Why was KTI chosen as a partner of KT&G?

    Stuart Buchanan

    Stuart Buchanan: After three years of collaborative efforts leading to the signing of this agreement, we have developed a strong cultural fit between our two companies in terms of people and commercial objectives. We expect the synergy between our complementary brand portfolios to strengthen the market position of both companies. A significant amount of time has been taken to structure a competitive business model and to develop an innovative and consumer-relevant product portfolio that is consistent to the global objectives and standards of KT&G.

    What necessitated this synergy?

    The KT&G partnership is certainly our most significant and strategic partnership; however, we have other partnerships with large global players, and in most cases, these synergistic partnerships have developed through taking time upfront to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This in itself is a process as it takes time to develop trust and a collaborative working environment that is open and transparent, particularly in cases where we are competitors in other parts of the world.

    Why do you think more global players are forming partnerships with KTI?

    When we started our international expansion, we were an unknown company, and we found it very difficult to find importers and distributors in strategic markets. From the outset in our first three proper international markets, Spain, France and the Czech Republic, we committed to working with credible world-class importers and giving them the level of service they would expect from a major multinational. By maintaining our business standards and building our corporate reputation, we now work with some of the world’s best partners, like KT&G, and new business is self-generating as we are the first point of call for credible, reliable partners.

    Our corporate reputation extends beyond just how we operate externally in our markets but also how we operate internally through things like properly vetting our supplier base, health and safety for our employees and most recently our environmental and sustainability strategy where we have installed a 5 MW photovoltaic solar park to be sustainably self-sufficient for over 40 percent of our energy needs.

    This is probably also our biggest learning; in building our corporate reputation by doing things properly from how we manage our business partners, our brand and product development, our people development, through to our investment strategy, sometimes takes longer, but the payback is significantly higher.

    What is most important in your business? What is the strategic potential of your company and the key to your success?

    First and foremost, our people. In both our production and commercial business units, we have prided ourselves on building a world-class organization with locally developed talent.

    Operating across 70 countries, our commercial teams have developed not only the commercial acumen to compete with the world’s best, but we have embedded a culture where we understand and respect cultural differences. This applies not only to the professionalism with which our teams engage with many different countries and cultures but also in how we deploy our brand portfolio by being flexible to the consumer needs of different markets and consumer segments.

    Secondly, our production capabilities. We have one of the world’s most modern factories and service these 70 countries from one factory. We are one of the few global companies across any category that services their total demand from one production facility. Whilst creating a highly complex production environment, it provides for global brand consistency and quality standards and a single point of business contact, which is seen as a significant benefit to our partners.

    This is particularly relevant to European partnerships as we have a core production strength in being able to operate across this highly complex environment with multiple EU-driven product registration processes. This applies not only to physical production but also to logistics, product development, commercial contracts and market implementation.

    What is your outlook for the future of the tobacco industry?

    As a company, we fully respect and support sensible regulation for what is an adult category of choice. We do, however, recognize the role and growth of next-generation products (NGPs) and reduced-risk products and believe these will continue to become an integral part of a broadening category. We also support the recent moves across Europe to regulate these products along similar lines to traditional tobacco with regards to excise, legal age and product registration as it will provide higher levels of consumer protection against cheap, low-quality imports, particularly in the disposable vaping category.

    Now that, in general, across Europe there is a much clearer regulatory outlook, we have recently launched our own NGP range under our brand in Spain and Bulgaria and aim to follow across major European markets, including Germany, the U.K., France, Czech and Italy, where we have a strong presence in our traditional cigarette brands.

    Looking at the longer term horizon on the future of the category, I personally believe a natural consumer-driven balance will develop between cigars, pipe tobacco, rolling products, traditional cigarettes and NGPs, where each will have a place in the consumer repertoire.

    How is KTI adapting to changing markets and consumer needs?

    Tobacco and nicotine alternatives are a highly regulated category, and as such, it is difficult to provide the same level of consumer interaction as other categories, and to a large extent, price and brand value provide the key consumer drivers. That being said, in our traditional business, we have always believed in providing different and innovative formats that go beyond the traditional brand, price, value equation in driving purchase. It is one of the key reasons for our growth.

    Does KTI have any plans to expand into reduced-risk products or other types of tobacco products aside from cigarettes and traditional leaf tobacco?

    2023 saw the launch of our LIV brand, which is our noncombustible brand. We have launched a range of travel-friendly nicotine pouches as our first step into the noncombustible category.  

    Marissa Dean joined Tobacco Reporter in the summer of 2018 as a copy editor.Since that time, she has taken on additional responsibilities, including feature writing.Her skills span the publishing industry from layout and design to copy editing to content creation.
  • KT&G Reports Growth in Second Quarter

    KT&G Reports Growth in Second Quarter

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    KT&G Corp. reported consolidated revenue of KRW1.42 trillion ($1.03 billion) and operating profit of KRW321.5 billion for its second quarter of 2024, marking a year-over-year growth rate of 6.6 percent and 30.6 percent, respectively.

    The company attributed the growth to robust performance in its overseas cigarette business, which achieved growth in all key metrics, including revenue, operating profit and sales volume. Revenue reached an all-time high of KRW359.1 billion, reflecting a growth rate of 35.3 percent. Operating profit soared 139.1 percent year-over-year.

    KT&G’s domestic next-generation product business also grew in in all three key metrics: revenue increased by 10.8 percent, operating profit by 42.8 percent and sales volume by 7.7 percent year-over-year. The overseas business continued to improve its profitability, driven by an increased proportion of stick sales volume, which is the key growth driver of the business.

    During an earnings call, KT&G said it intends to accelerate progress toward its goal of becoming “a global top-tier company” by strengthening fundamental competitiveness and structural reforms. To that end, the company in July announced an agreement with Philip Morris International under which the partners will collaborate on premarket tobacco product application submissions for KT&G’s new next-generation products in the United States.

    KT&G also updated its full-year outlook during the earnings conference call. The company projects the annual consolidated revenue to grow between 2.5 percent and 3 percent, with operating profit expected to remain flat, reflecting changes in the business environment in the company’s health functional food and real estate sectors.

    “We achieved growth in both revenue and operating profit in the second quarter by expanding our overseas business, which delivered solid performance in our core growth areas. We will continue to maximize corporate value by strengthening the competitiveness of our core growth businesses and enhance shareholder value through our best-in-class shareholder return policy,” KT&G wrote in a press release.

  • PMI and KT&G to Partner on Submissions

    PMI and KT&G to Partner on Submissions

    Photo: KT&G

    Philip Morris International and KT&G will collaborate on regulatory submissions for KT&G heat-not-burn products in the United States. The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding.

    On Jan. 30, 2023, PMI obtained exclusive rights to commercialize KT&G’s smoke-free products outside South Korea.

    KT&G’s new platform products are expected to be launched first outside the U.S. Thereafter, the partners plan to work on a premarket tobacco product application submission for review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

    “We want every adult smoker who does not quit smoking to switch to a science-backed, better alternative for the benefit of their own and public health,” said PMI CEO Jacek Olczak in a statement.

    “The heat-not-burn category, with different tiers of FDA-authorized products, has a pivotal role to play in making cigarettes obsolete in the U.S.”

    KT&G “is currently pursuing global expansion and structural transformation centered on its three core businesses—next-generation products, overseas cigarettes, and health supplements,” said KT&G President Bang Kyung-man in a statement.

    “We will do our utmost to achieve our future vision of becoming global top-tier by leveraging innovative NGP products and scientific R&D capabilities that will be introduced to overseas markets.”

  • KT&G Volunteers Help With Harvest

    KT&G Volunteers Help With Harvest

    Photo: KT&G

    KT&G volunteers assisted Boeun County tobacco farmers with their tobacco harvest on July 19.

    Farmers in South Korea have been facing labor shortages due to the ongoing decline in rural populations and aging demographics. The situation is particularly critical during the tobacco harvest season in July and August, which is labor intensive and largely unmechanized.

    To alleviate the burden, KT&G volunteers have been visiting tobacco farms annually since 2007. After assisting with transplanting tobacco seedlings in the spring, the employees also contribute to the tobacco leaf harvest.

    Additionally, KT&G has been carrying out welfare improvement projects for tobacco farmers. In June, the company provided KRW420 million ($303,829.67) to support tobacco farmers with health checkup costs, children’s education fees and fuel-saving curing devices. Since 2013, the company has provided KRW4.27 billion, benefiting 15,212 farmers.

    “The company annually conducts employee volunteer activities to support stable farming operations for tobacco farmers facing labor shortages,” said Jung-Ho Kim, head of KT&G’s SCM division, in a statement. “We will continue our support for mutual prosperity with farmers.”