Sampyo Cement

Sampyo Cement (KRX: 038500) is a South Korean cement, concrete and chemical company headquartered in Seoul. It produces portland cement products. It was established in 1957 as Tong Yang Cement by Lee Yang-gu as the second of his many companies which would grow into the Tongyang Group, and was also later known as Tongyang Cement and Energy.[1][2]

In 1957, Lee used his own capital from money he earned in the confectionery business to acquire a cement factory in Samcheok, Gangwon Province; its owners at the time were eager to sell due to frequent labour disputes and the poor state of the physical plant.[3] That factory had started operations in 1942 under the ownership of Onoda Cement during Japanese colonial rule over Korea.[4] Lee searched out former Onoda engineers in order to rehire them, in particular Oh Pyong-ho, "supposedly the only competent cement engineer in post-colonial South Korea"; Oh accepted the job offer. Lee then began repairs to the facilities with the aid of engineers from Germany's Polysius Company, resolved the labour disputes, and revamped the recruiting programmes; he hired heavily from the local Samcheok High School, and many of his new hires' fathers had worked for Onoda in the past.[5]

Following the Tongyang Group's bankruptcy in September 2013, Tongyang Cement and Energy went into court receivership.[6] The three South Korean conglomerates with the largest ready-mix concrete businesses, namely Aju Group, Eugene Group, and Sampyo Group, all showed interest in acquiring Tongyang Cement in 2014.[7] Among the three, Sampyo Group's bid was successful, and in September 2015, Sampyo Group formally acquired a 45.07% stake in Tongyang Cement, with the Korea Development Bank Sigma Private Equity Fund acquiring another 9.88%, in a ₩794 billion deal.[8][9] Tongyang Cement and Energy adopted its current name Sampyo Cement in April 2017.[10][11]