Chungcheongnam-do

SKC and Rohm & Haas concluded a contract and made a new joint-venture company specialized in electronic display materials. According to the contract, SKC primarily detached current display material business & established a new corporation to produce processed film, optical filter, mill base etc., and Rohm and Haas invested $190mil. in the new corporation. Thus a joint venture SKC Haas came into the world. SKCHaas moves toward a differentiated display materials company with total value of $400 millions.

 Decisive Meeting Between the Best and the Best
SKC and Rohm & Haas established SKC Haas Display Films aiming a world-class display materials company through their decisive joining together. SKC Haas Display Films, by combing SKC position as a market leader in the display materials industry and Rohm & Haas' technological competitiveness in the flat display field, is producing display materials and optical films necessary for LCD and PDP industries.
Now this company concentrates on R&D to develop the next generation film with of higher added values.
SKC leads optical film market on the base of many experiences in film production and coating for more than 30 years and occupies No.1 market share since 1998. Recently SKC, which had proved the high profitability of manufacturing diffuser, protector and reflector sheet, penetrated into the color filter market for TFT-LCD and now has manufacturing plants in Cheonan, Korea and Suzhou, China.
Rohm & Haas is a company having global manufacturing plants through technical innovations for more than 100 years in the electronic materials and functional chemical products. It is counted as one of the 5 major companies of the world in materials and chemica industry used for semi-conductor, electronic circuit board and flat display fields. Recently, this company undertook the Light Management Film part of Eastman Kodak and integrated a new material technology into ‘SKC Haas Display Film’ to hold a secure portfolio of diverse products.

Optical Film for TFT LCD Backlight Unit
SKC, a company having advanced technologies in polyester films and magnetic coating with special modern facilities, started R&D in 1998 and has produced diffuser films for monitor since 1999. And SKC Haas built the Suzhou manufacturing plant in 2003 and the Huizhou plant in 2005 to cope with the era of Globalization. Now, Prism, a kind of coating products, and Micro Lens Film are produced in these plants.

Optical Filter
Optical Filter made by SKC Haas is the optimized product according to the characteristics of a panel. It realizes R,G,B closer to natural colors by its cumulated processing technologies (Coating, Formulation, Dye Composition, Color Simulation) and satisfies diverse cus-tomer needs.
It has prevented the malfunction of remote control by cutting off infrared light under 10% through the optimal combination among special dyes and minimized the light reflection and realized excellent antipollution function by improving the surface tension with special chemicals. This is a world-best and eco-friendly product with excellent EMI shielding capacity.

Active Penetration into the Taiwan LCD Market
Recently, SKC Haas is getting encouraging accomplishments in Taiwan, a rival country of Korea in production of LCD panels. Taiwanese panel makers prefer to cooperate with Korean film makers as their partner mainly because they can catch up with leading Korean rivals by importing films made by those Korean companies of advanced technologies.
Therefore, now SKC Haas turns its gaze on more attractive Taiwan market both in growth and profitability to escape from the severely competitive current market of Korea where many big companies and specialized SMBs struggle.
SKC Haas already penetrated into Taiwan market years ago and has exported not only diffuser films and micro lens films, but also mill base, a kind of raw material for color filter and PDP filter. This year SKC Haas expects that the potion of Taiwan market might occupy 30% of the total sales of diffuser films and it intends to increase the export target to Taiwan to reach $52 billions. A person concerned of SKC Haas said, “Lots of panel makers in Taiwan have a tendency to prefer the technological competitive edge of domestic film makers. We will affirmatively supply our raw materials to overseas market considering the trend of increasing the panel production capacities in China, Japan and other countries.”

SKC Haas Meeting Favorable Time for Global Expansion
It seems that the global strategy of ‘SKC Haas Display Film’ will be more strengthened as the recent M&A plan between Dow Chemical and Rohm & Haas was announced. This company is specialized in optical, special films for flat panel display and SKC has 49% stakes of this company whereas Rohm & Haas has 51% stakes. The M&A plan is said to be advantageous to SKC because Dow Chemical's strategic goal to reduce its too much dependence on the petrochemical industry by this M&A is the same as SKC Haas Display Film emphasis on its main product category. Consequently, there will be many advantages for ‘SKC Haas Display Film’ to become a leader in the competent world market.

 

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We will Provide a World Standard of the Optical Display Films.

Mr. Myeonhan Kim, current President and CEO of SKC Haas, has consecutively served in the special film and the display part for more than 25 years. Since he entered SKC in 1981, he has served as a manager of film business, the head of Japan office, a managing director of media business and the head of display business. He said,“The establishment of SKC Haas joint venture will serve as a great momentum for SKC to grow fast in the electronic materials business. SKC could increase the synergy effect by cooperations among several businesses areas such as chemical business and film business through this joint venture.” And he added, “We have a strategic goal to increase a driving force in our NPD and manufacturing process by combining strengths in R&D and production capacity which both companies have.”