Humax will acquire Jeju Electric Vehicle Service to expand its electric vehicle charging business. Jeju Electric Vehicle Service is a charging service company in Jeju with 2,000 slow chargers (7㎾h) operation. The company was established in 2013 with a joint investment of KRW 700 million by POSCO ICT and Daekyung Engineering. The total sales in the charging service market was KRW 2.4 billion last year. Humax has already taken over Daeyoung Chaevi (manufacturing/service), Easy Charger (maintenance/control center), PSN (development), and Charzin (system). It was interpreted that the acquisition of Jeju Electric Vehicle Service is an attempt to expand its presence in the charging service market. The estimated amount of acquisition cost is KRW 10 billion.
Humax has acquired businesses related with charging since 2019. It is capable of manufacturing and producing chargers to service operation and management systems, service networks, and construction businesses. Its strategy is to create a synergy effect by combining the mobility business such as a parking lot promoted by Humax Group along with the charging business.
There is a controversy over the acquisition of Jeju Electric Vehicle Service regarding installation and operation of the chargers using national subsidies. Rep. Young-sae Kwon criticized during a parliamentary audit last year that "Electric vehicle charging businesses that have been installed using the national subsidies are competing to gather investment by selling their shares in order to promote of electric vehicles. Huge government subsidies are being abused to profit by private companies.” An official from Humax said, "We are expanding our charging business, but we cannot disclose any on going issue at the moment."
By Staff Reporter Tae-jun Park (gaius@etnews.com)