Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – SK Group, the multi-national manufacturing and service conglomerate company based in South Korea with a market capitalization of U$177b, has announced its commitment to further invest in Malaysia, following its recent investment in the country of over US$700m in 2021.
According to SK Group, in January 2021, SK Nexilis announced a capital expenditure of US$553m (RM2.3b) to set up a copper foil manufacturing facility in Sabah, which will be part of SK Group’s Electric Vehicle (EV) value chain. Meanwhile, SK Group’s car-sharing subsidiary SoCar Malaysia has recently raised more than US$55m from EastBridge Partners and local conglomerate Sime Darby to fuel its expansion and build an EV platform in Malaysia, with plans to deploy hundreds of EVs in the next five years.
Furthermore, SK Group has announced a strategic investment of up to US$100m into Malaysia’s fintech BigPay in August 2021, which is a testament to the ability of Malaysian fintech companies to grow not just domestically, but also regionally and become a major player in SEA. The fintech has plans to catalyze intra-regional trade between Malaysian SMEs and the region, by initially leveraging the connectivity and network of AirAsia, combined with its logistics arm, Teleport. SK Group has also announced that it will be joining the BigPay consortium to apply for the upcoming digital banking license in Malaysia.
Jung Kyu Kim, SK Group’s chief representative for Malaysia, said, “We are confident that SK’s experience in financial tech services will contribute to the successful digital bank ecosystem in Malaysia and further growth into the ASEAN region.”
SK Group said that as it expands rapidly into new industries globally especially in sectors benefiting the environment and human health, SK Group is looking forward to more investment opportunities in Malaysia. In particular, SK Group is keen to explore with like-minded partners in the growing sectors of EV, digitalization, and environment.
