Hyundai heir focuses on emerging markets

May 25, 2014 Leave a comment

Updated : 2014-05-22 20:47

Hyundai heir focuses on emerging markets

Hyundai Motor Group Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun is apparently seeking to find new momentum in emerging markets in Asia and South America where demand for cars is growing fast.
The heir apparent at Korea’s second-largest conglomerate visited India,Turkey and Oman last week to checkout the potential-laden markets.
By contrast, Chung cared more aboutdeveloped markets in the past, suchas the United States and Europe.
“It is understandable for Chung to visit India and Turkey because theyaccommodate Hyundai plants that are significant in the company’sglobal strategy,” said an analyst at a Seoul brokerage who asked not tobe named.
“But it was a surprise for him to visit Oman, where Hyundai does nothave production facilities, and that is why the local media wrote articlesto learn his intentions. I guess he puts great weight on Middle Eastmarkets as next-generation growth engines.”
Unlike nearby Europe, which has slumped in recent years, the MiddleEast has shown increasing demand for vehicles, thus attracting globalautomotive leaders.
Hyundai Motor and its sister firm, Kia Motors, also saw their salesalmost double in four years ― their combined sales in the Middle Eastamounted to some 118,700 cars in 2009, but the figures jumped to196,800 last year.
That performance is expected to improve further this year.
Chung is also poised to fly to Brazil next month just ahead of the BrazilWorld Cup.
He is expected to monitor marketing activities for the quadrennial eventfor which Hyundai is the official sponsor. Plus, he is expected to studythe viability of jacking up the automaker’s production capacity there.
The possibility also emerged that Chung will soon visit China toaccelerate the construction of the company’s fourth Chinese plant inChongqing.
Chung did not forget about the current bread-earners of the Seoul-based group ― he visited Hyundai’s U.S. factory in February andparticipated in a motor show in New York last month to launch the newSonata.

Filed under Macro Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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