Airlines make for tricky bets in private equity, where fuel swings, currency moves and lease bills mean that more passengers don't always add up to bigger profits. Yet for VIG Partners, a Seoul-based buyout fund that already owns budget carrier Eastar Jet, it seems one airline isn't enough. Industry sources said Tuesday that VIG was weighing a bid for Air Premia, a long-haul hybrid carrier that undercuts full-service airlines on fares while still offering perks like roomier seats and in-flight m

Hyundai Motor Group is exploring plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots at its Czech manufacturing plant, positioning Europe as the next strategic proving ground after the US for its robotics-powered smart manufacturing vision. Developed by its US subsidiary Boston Dynamics, the robot’s deployment in Hyundai’s own European lines offers a critical real-world testbed to validate operational reliability, safety and workplace integration. If successful, it could pave the way for broader commercial ro

Musinsa is going up against CJ Olive Young in beauty as it makes its case to investors that the company is worth as much as 10 trillion won ($7.2 billion). The harder sell is to prove that its nonfashion ventures can deliver profits to match. The fashion platform filed its listing application Sept. 7, with market insiders floating a valuation well above the 5.5 trillion won implied by unlisted-market trading that day and the 3.5 trillion won valuation it secured in a 2023 funding round. Beauty i

Shinhan’s renewed Incheon mandate highlights the value of public accounts as gateways to deposits, customers and regional business Shinhan Bank’s latest win gives it another four years managing Incheon’s main treasury, an account handling nearly 15 trillion won in annual public spending. But the value of the mandate lies less in the headline figure than in the business it can help generate. Municipal treasury contracts can be costly to secure and slow to turn a profit. Banks offer competitive de

Justice Minister nominee Rep. Kim Seung-won is facing scrutiny over his ties to Genencell, a biotech company whose COVID-19 treatment claims were factors in a Financial Supervisory Service investigation into alleged stock-price manipulation. Kim is accused of passing on a request to drug authorities to approve clinical trials for a Genencell drug in October 2021. It is also alleged that the subsequent approval was used in stock price manipulation. An FSS report obtained by lawmakers yesterday su

South Korea has allowed foreign financial institutions to settle won payments directly overseas, marking a step toward making the currency more widely used on a global scale, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday. Under the new framework, existing registered foreign institutions will be able to obtain an additional license as Registered Foreign Institutions for KRW Business, or RFI-Ks for short. With the license, foreign financial institutions will be able to open omnibus accounts with domestic ba

Samsung Electronics has spent seven years developing the Galaxy Z Fold from an experimental device into one of the world’s best-known foldable smartphones. Next month, for the first time, it will face an iPhone built around the same book-style idea and priced almost directly against it in the US. Apple surprised the market last week by setting the 256-gigabyte iPhone Duo at $1,999, well below prelaunch estimates of around $2,500. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8 launched at $1,899.99. That leaves only a

Chinese automakers have been largely shut out of the US by steep tariffs and national security restrictions. US President Donald Trump, however, has signaled that the door may not remain closed. Trump said last week he would welcome Chinese automakers that build vehicles in the US and hire American workers, unsettling global rivals that have long viewed America as one of the last major markets insulated from Chinese competition. “If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars he

A new US order targeting foreign-linked power-grid equipment appears, at first glance, to give South Korean battery makers an opening against their dominant Chinese rivals. But Ford’s use of technology licensed from China’s CATL shows why the competitive benefit may be smaller than expected. Ford argues that batteries produced at its wholly owned Michigan plant are American-made despite relying on CATL technology. That ownership structure could help the automaker navigate Washington’s latest res

Electricity is the lifeblood of the artificial intelligence era. In South Korea, however, the utility responsible for delivering it is carrying more than 200 trillion won ($148 billion) in debt as the country prepares to build power-hungry semiconductor clusters. Korea Electric Power Corp. needs roughly 100 trillion won to expand the grid. To help finance that work, the state-run utility has asked Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to pay five years of electricity bills upfront — a combined 25 tri