Hanwha Group Has Largest Number of Affiliates Abroad
The number of overseas affiliates set up by Korean conglomerates soared in the United States, but fell in China last year.
As of the end of May this year, the 76 Korean business groups with assets exceeding 5 trillion won were practically controlling 5,287 subsidiaries in 123 overseas countries, the CXO Research Center said on June 14. The business groups owned more than 50 percent of these overseas subsidiaries.
Hanwha Group had the largest number of affiliates in foreign countries. It had 637 overseas subsidiaries, an increase of 190 from last year. It beat Samsung Group, which had 574 overseas subsidiaries, down 19 from 2021.
Hanwha saw a significant increase in the number of overseas affiliates in the energy sector.
Hanwha and Samsung were followed by SK (541), Hyundai Motor (395), CJ (392), LG (365), Lotte (206), GS (158), POSCO (139), Naver (104).
By country, the United States was home to the largest number of Korean business group's affiliates at 1,169, an increase of 284 from 2021. The U.S. accounted for 22.1 percent of the total, up from 18.8 percent in 2021. Hanwha was also the Korean business group with the largest number of subsidiaries in the United States. SK’s U.S. subsidiaries increased the most, from 78 in 2021 to 179 in 2022.
On the other hand, the number of the 76 business groups' Chinese subsidiaries decreased by 34 from last year to 840. The number of their Hong Kong subsidiaries also sank from 163 in 2021 to 154 in 2022. Last year, the number of their Chinese subsidiaries including Hong Kong hit 1,037, which outnumbered that of their subsidiaries in the United States by 175.
Meanwhile, the number of their overseas corporations dropped in 35 regions designated as tax havens by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) such as the Virgin Islands. The figure sat at 106, down from 121 in 2021. On the other hand, the number of their overseas corporations in Singapore and Malaysia which are classified as tax-avoidant countries due to low tax rates, increased from 610 in 2021 to 645. The number of their overseas corporations established in these regions totaled 751, accounting for 14.2 percent of all their overseas corporations.