SKC has approved a paid-in capital increase of about 1 trillion won to accelerate future materials businesses such as glass substrates. SKC said on Feb. 26 it held a board meeting and approved the roughly 1 trillion won capital increase.

The company will issue 11.73 million new shares through a rights offering followed by a public offering of unsubscribed shares. The record date for allocation is April 7, and subscriptions by existing shareholders will run for 2 days from May 14. The offer price is expected to be finalised in mid-May. SK Inc, SKC's largest shareholder with a 40.64 percent stake, also filed a disclosure the same day saying it would oversubscribe by more than 120 percent of its allocation based on the growth potential of SKC's semiconductor materials business.

About 590 billion won of the funds raised will be used for product development at Absolics, an investee for glass substrate investment. Absolics said it has recently made meaningful progress in product development for global big tech customers. It is focusing on strengthening execution by pooling the capabilities of specialist engineers under new CEO Jiho Kang (강지호), who previously worked at Intel and SK Hynix.

Absolics is pursuing a two-track strategy, developing both an embedding method, a high-end product for AI data centres, and a non-embedding method that can be commercialised more quickly. It plans to achieve timely entry into the market. It also plans to build an ecosystem with various stakeholders and partners to maintain a technological edge.

The remaining about 410 billion won will be used to repay borrowings. SKC plans to prioritise repayment of borrowings approaching maturity to reduce financing costs and improve its debt ratio. Through the capital increase, SKC's debt ratio is expected to fall from about 230 percent at end-2025 to the low 140 percent range.

An SKC official said, "This capital increase is meant to support clear growth in future businesses such as semiconductor materials and to strengthen the company's fundamentals," adding, "We will do our best to accelerate Absolics' growth with the secured funds to raise shareholder value and corporate value."