Kolmar Korea Appoints Global Experts to Speed up Its Presence in North America
Kolmar Holdings announced that it voted to appoint Kolmar Group Vice Chairman Yoon Sang-hyun as CEO in a regular board meeting on May 2. Yoon Sang-hyun is the eldest son of Kolmar Group Chairman Yoon Dong-han, the founder of Kolmar Group.
With the appointment of Yoon as CEO, Kolmar Group plans to expedite the global expansion of K-beauty. In April, the company changed the name of its holding company from Kolmar Korea Holdings to Kolmar Holdings to reflect its intention to expand its business beyond Korea.
Kolmar Group has recently accelerated its overseas expansion including the United States. Following the opening of its North American Technical Sales Center in New Jersey of the United States last year, Kolmar Korea will complete its second factory in the United States later this year. Unlike the first plant, which focuses on color cosmetics, the second plant will produce basic skincare and sun care products. This will enable the company to produce a full range of cosmetics in the United States, the world’s largest market. Kolmar Global, which is in charge of overseas business outside North America, will enter the Southeast Asian market by establishing overseas subsidiaries in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore.
Vice Chairman Yoon recognized the importance of the North American market early on. In 2016, Kolmar USA (formerly known as PTP) and Kolmar Canada (formerly known as CSR), a U.S. cosmetics ODM service provider, were acquired to lay the foundation for Kolmar’s global expansion. In 2022, Yoon took the lead in the acquisition of trademark rights to the Kolmar brand. With the exclusive rights to the Kolmar brand, Kolmar Group is now free to run in global markets without trademark restrictions.
Yoon also orchestrated the acquisition of HK inno.N (formerly known as CJ Healthcare) in 2018. He began a project to take over CJ Healthcare to seek new growth engines for Kolmar Group which had a business structure centered on cosmetics and health functional foods. The acquisition of CJ Healthcare was a rare case where a mid-sized company acquired an affiliate of a large business group in Korea. The deal was worth 1.31 trillion won. In August 2021, the company successfully had an initial public offering (IPO) for HK inno.N. Kolmar Holdings plans to actively support HK inno.N’s global expansion in the pharmaceutical business.
Source: https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=216424#google_vignette
