KUALA LUMPUR: SK Group, South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, has committed over US$700mil (RM2.9bil) worth of investments in Malaysia in 2021, and intends to increase its investments in the country.
In a statement, it said that in January 2021, SK Nexilis announced a capital expenditure of RM2.3bil to set up a copper foil manufacturing facility in Sabah, which will be part of SK Group’s electric vehicle (EV) value chain.
Additionally, SK Group’s subsidiary, SoCar Malaysia, the country’s largest car-sharing company, has raised more than US$55mil (RM230mil) from EastBridge Partners and local conglomerate Sime Darby Bhd to fuel its expansion and build an EV platform in the country, with plans to deploy hundreds of EVs in the next five years.
The group, which has a market capitalisation of US$177bil (RM741bil), had also invested up to US$100mil (RM419mil) in BigPay, a leading regional fintech company based in Malaysia in August 2021. “In the spirit of hyper collaboration, SK Group is also joining the BigPay consortium to apply for the digital banking license in Malaysia,” it said
“SK Group sees the growing opportunity in digital banking as a way to change the way large portions of the population access financial services,” it said.
The group has proven commercial experience in digital banking in Korea, such as its Alternative Credit Rating and Artificial Intelligence-based data analytics.
The group is also keen to explore with like-minded partners in sectors such as EV, digitalisation and environment. — BERNAMA
Source: The Star
