getty
As the growing popularity of electric vehicles charge up demand for battery components, shares of South Korea-listed chemicals group EcoPro have surged almost 230% since the beginning of the year, making its founder and chairman, Lee Dong-chae, a billionaire in the process.
Lee, who turned 64 in December, is the largest shareholder of EcoPro, with a 19.29% stake. He founded EcoPro in 1998 and listed it on South Korea’s technology-rich Kosdaq stock exchange in 2007. Forbes estimates Lee’s net worth at $1.1 billion as of Monday’s close.
Headquartered in Cheongju, south of Seoul, EcoPro is a holding company with two separately traded units: EcoPro BM, the battery-materials maker, and EcoPro HN, which makes air filters for factories, such as semiconductor facilities.
Investors are especially interested in EcoPro BM, whose shares have soared 117% so far this year. Its market capitalization is now close to 20 trillion won ($15 billion), making it the most-valuable company on the Kosdaq. EcoPro BM took the top spot from Celltrion Healthcare, a marketing subsidiary of Korean biotech billionaire Seo Jung-jin’s Celltrion.
EcoPro BM is South Korea’s largest producer of cathodes for electric car batteries. The cathode is the single most expensive component of a battery cell, and cathode materials, such as lithium, nickel and cobalt, account for about a third of a battery’s cost.
In October last year, a joint venture between EcoPro BM and Samsung SDI, the battery arm of Korean billionaire Jay Y. Lee’s Samsung conglomerate, completed construction of a cathode material plant in the South Korean southeastern port city of Pohang, which is the world’s largest by output capacity.
Meanwhile, EcoPro is preparing to list another subsidiary, a battery precursor producer called EcoPro Materials. According to local media reports, EcoPro Materials plans to go public on the Korea Exchange’s main Kospi market later this year at a valuation of about $2 billion.
In 2021, another South Korean chemicals company produced a billionaire on the back of surging demand for electric vehicles. Lee Sang-ryul, founder and co-CEO of Kosdaq-listed Chunbo, joined the three-comma club after shares of the company, which makes chemicals for lithium-ion batteries, rose nearly 40% in the first nine months of 2021. Chunbo’s shares are up almost 15% so far this year.