LG Energy Solutions Becomes South Korea's 2nd Most Valuable Company

EV battery maker LG Energy Solutions has become South Korea's 2nd most valuable company by market capitalisation after it debuted its IPO on Thursday. It debuted with a market capitalisation of $98.3 billion which makes it South Korea's second most valuable company after Samsung. LG Energy Solutions is the world's 2nd largest manufacturer of batteries after China's CATL with around 23 percent market share of the global EV battery market with high-profile customers like Tesla, GM, and Volkswagen. 

It was spun out of LG's LG Chem division which now holds an 81.8 percent stake in LG Energy Solutions. It has 30,000 employees and develops lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, military, drones, ships IT applications, and energy storage systems. It also has Magna as a partner. 

LG Energy Solution Raises $10.8 Billion In South Korea's Biggest IPO

Its IPO was scheduled for last June but it was abandoned after numerous incidents of battery-related fires in vehicles by GM and Hyundai. These issues since then have been fixed. In fact, LG Energy Solutions has also made a commitment towards investing $5.2 billion in battery materials by 2025. It will also be helping GM build a $2.6 billion battery plant in the US. 

LG Energy Solutions believes that soon it will be able to overtake CATL as the leading battery manufacturer in the world thanks to its diversified clientele who are based all around the world, not just focused on China which is admittedly the largest EV market in the world.