Foosung draws on 40 years of accumulated fluorochemical technology to earn money from refrigerants, the key lithium salt LiPF6 for secondary batteries (which it is the only domestic producer of), semiconductor specialty gases (WF6 and C4F6) and industrial inorganic fluorine compounds; its consolidated revenue (about ₩471.6 billion in 2025) includes the chemical-equipment subsidiary Hantech (about 66% stake). In 2025, rising refrigerant prices and Hantech's North America-bound equipment orders swung operating profit back to a profit, and the Q1 report filed in May confirmed accelerating revenue (+32%) and an operating-profit recovery. What stands out lately is that the strengths of a roughly doubled capacity opening large 2026-2027 operating-profit leverage, on top of its position as the sole domestic LiPF6 maker and a semiconductor specialty-gas supplier, sit alongside cautions: even when operating profit is positive, high financial costs and exchangeable-bond valuation swings have repeatedly flipped net profit into a loss (debt ratio 131%, interest coverage below 1x).
At-a-glance assessment financial health · growth · profitability · valuation
- Assets that can be turned to cash within a year fall short of near-term liabilities (current ratio 90.6%).
- Operating profit barely covers the interest bill (interest coverage below 1x).
- Revenue rose 7.7% year over year, and the pace is quickening (3-year trend: mixed).
- Net profit swung from a loss a year earlier back into the black (a turnaround).
- Most recent quarter (Q1 2026) revenue was 32.0% higher than a year earlier.
- ROE is 1.6% (controlling-interest basis). It is below the sector average.
- Operating margin is 5.4%.
- The P/E sits above the sector median, reflecting elevated expectations.
Ownership & governance As of 2025-12-31
Largest shareholder Kim Yong-min 20.85% (individual)
Controlling bloc incl. related parties 46.04%
With the controlling bloc holding 46%, the ownership structure is stable.
🔎 In-depth analysis
- Drawing on 40 years of accumulated fluorochemical technology, Foosung earns money broadly in four ways.
- (1) Refrigerants (gases for air conditioners and refrigerators) - its flagship domestic business, where environmental regulation cut refrigerant production quotas and pushed up domestic distribution prices, a major axis of the 2025 earnings improvement.
- (2) Secondary-battery materials - it is the only domestic producer of LiPF6, the key lithium salt in electrolytes.
- (3) Semiconductor specialty gases - it makes WF6 (tungsten hexafluoride) and C4F6, used in semiconductor circuit-formation processes.
- (4) Industrial inorganic fluorine compounds.
- Consolidated revenue (about ₩471.6 billion in 2025) includes the subsidiary Hantech (about 66% stake), which makes chemical-plant equipment; Hantech's expanded North America-bound equipment orders also lifted the 2025 consolidated results.
- In short, the parent is a fluorochemical maker, while the consolidated results add Hantech's equipment business on top.
- The recent close is ₩11,840 and market capitalization is ₩1.3 trillion.
- The price sits below its 20-day line (₩16,818) and below its 60-day line (₩14,074); trading below both the short- and medium-term moving averages, the trend is on the depressed side.
- The RSI (a supplementary gauge that compares up-day and down-day strength over the past 14 days on a 0-100 scale) is 41.1, a neutral level.
- The one-month change is -27.1%, the three-month change is +20.0%, and the position versus the 52-week high is -47.1%.
- Relative strength versus the KOSPI is 67 (1-99, computed from returns against the index over the past year with more weight on recent performance; higher means stronger than the market), placing it in roughly the top 32% for strength among all stocks.
- Over the past three months it lagged the index by 1.8%.
- Chart reading is best done alongside volume and disclosure dates.
- On surface metrics alone, the P/E ratio (how many times a year's earnings the share price is) is about 308x, very high.
- But this is an illusion arising because 2025 net profit was a low early-recovery figure (about ₩5.3 billion).
- The more important trait is that operating profit is positive but net profit is depressed.
- In 2025 operating profit was positive but pretax profit was a loss, and in Q1 2026 the company posted operating profit of ₩9.3 billion yet a net loss of ₩7.2 billion.
- The cause is not the core business but the financial structure.
- The debt ratio (debt against equity) is a high 131%, operating profit barely covers interest (interest coverage below 1x), and non-operating items such as valuation gains and losses on exchangeable bonds issued against held subsidiary shares swing net profit heavily.
- The current ratio is also 91%, meaning assets readily convertible to cash are slightly less than debt due within a year, so financial stability remains something to watch.
- On the other side, the key point is that the operations themselves are clearly improving.
- Results trace a classic cyclical recovery path.
- Revenue peaked at ₩610.6 billion in 2022, declined through 2023-2024, then rebounded +7.7% to ₩471.6 billion in 2025.
- Earnings swing far more widely - operating profit went from ₩105.4 billion in 2022 into losses of -₩46.1 billion in 2023 and -₩9.6 billion in 2024, before swinging back to a ₩25.3 billion profit in 2025.
- In other words, 2023-2024 was a deep trough when a secondary-battery slump dropped LiPF6 utilization into the 30% range.
- Q1 2026 revenue accelerated +32% year on year and the operating margin recovered to 6.5%.
- The picture ahead is expansion beyond escaping the trough: US FEOC rules are lifting demand for non-Chinese LiPF6, restarting orders for domestic lines, so the existing 2,000-tonne line goes to full operation from Q2 and a new 2,000-tonne line is set for a second-half start-up, roughly doubling effective production capacity.
- At the same time, AI-semiconductor demand and China-Japan supply constraints on tungsten and specialty gases are reviving demand for semiconductor gases such as WF6.
- With this capacity expansion and demand recovery running through 2027, this year looks closer to the start of a recovery than a cyclical peak.
- That said, how fully this operating improvement flows down to net profit hinges on the high financial costs noted above.
- The gist of recent developments is confirmed in disclosures.
- In a February 2026 earnings-structure-change disclosure, the company itself stated the 2025 swing back to operating profit (driven by higher refrigerant prices and the subsidiary's North America equipment orders), and the March annual report finalized the details.
- A March exchange-right exercise disclosure concerned the exercise of exchangeable bonds issued against Foosung's held shares in the subsidiary Hantech; it is a matter of funding and holding cleanup via existing shares, not new-share issuance (dilution) of Foosung's own stock.
- The Q1 report in May showed accelerating revenue (+32%) and an operating-profit recovery, a corporate-governance report was disclosed in June, and in early July a series of large-holding reports were filed.
- The observation point is that operating recovery and financial weight diverge clearly.
- On the strength side, on top of a hard-to-replace position as the sole domestic LiPF6 maker and a semiconductor specialty-gas supplier, capacity is roughly doubling (Q2 full operation, second-half new line), and policy- and structure-driven demand from FEOC and supply-chain realignment opens large 2026-2027 operating-profit leverage.
- Firm refrigerant prices are also a stable cash pillar.
- Thus the trailing P/E of 308x is merely an illusion based on trough earnings, and against recovering operating profit it should be seen far lower.
- On the caution side, even when operating profit is positive, high financial costs and exchangeable-bond valuation swings have repeatedly flipped net profit into a loss in 2025 and Q1 2026 - the backdrop being a debt ratio of 131%, interest coverage below 1x and a current ratio of 91%.
- In short, it is strong when the LiPF6 and semiconductor-gas expansions run as planned and the non-operating costs weighing on net profit stabilize, and weak when the expansion is delayed or financial costs, currency, or equity valuation losses grow.
🔎 Valuation vs peers Inconclusive
A peer group of secondary-battery electrolyte materials and specialty-chemical businesses, compared against Chunbo (electrolyte salts and additives), Cosmo AM&T (secondary-battery materials) and Lotte Fine Chemical (specialty chemicals).
| Peer | P/E | P/B | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chunbo | 0.00x | 1.02x | -13.64% |
| Cosmo AM&T | 0.00x | 2.51x | -0.11% |
| Lotte Fine Chemical | 10.44x | 0.45x | 4.36% |
(a) Position: peers such as Chunbo and Cosmo AM&T are mostly in net-loss troughs where computing a P/E is meaningless, and Foosung shares the same cycle, so trailing-P/E comparison in this group simply does not hold. (b) Premium: Foosung's P/B of 4.9x is higher than the peers (Chunbo 1.08, Cosmo 2.56, Lotte Fine 0.48), which reflects that the doubling of capacity and recovery expectations are already partly priced in. (c) The trailing P/E of 308x is an illusion based on 2025's early-recovery trough net profit, and it plainly shows the limits of trailing multiples for earnings-inflection stocks. The recovery is clear on an operating-profit basis, but because net profit is dominated by non-operating financial items, it is hard to fix a reliable forward net profit and P/E, so rather than declaring undervalued or overvalued we leave it inconclusive.
Price history Close · MA20 · MA60
The latest close is ₩11,840 and the market capitalization is ₩1.3 trillion. The price sits below its 20-day moving average (₩16,818) and below its 60-day moving average (₩14,074). It is under both its short- and medium-term moving averages, so the trend looks subdued. The RSI (a supplementary indicator that gauges the strength of gains versus losses over the past 14 days on a 0-100 scale) is 41.1, a neutral level. The one-month change is -27.1%, the three-month change is +20.0%, and the position relative to the 52-week high is -47.1%. Relative strength versus the KOSPI is 67 (on a 1-99 scale, converted from returns against the index over the past year with more weight on recent performance; higher means stronger than the market). It is stronger than roughly 68% of all stocks. Over the past three months it lagged the index by 1.8%. Chart interpretation is best done alongside trading volume and the dates on which disclosures occur.
Relative performance stock vs index · start = 100
Excess return vs index · 3M -1.80% / 6M -5.06% / 12M +1.91%
Key metrics vs sector median
Valuation
The P/E of 239.19x is above the sector median (14.79x). The P/B of 3.80x is above the sector median (0.97x).
Enterprise value (EV)
EV = market cap + net debt. It reflects cash and debt, so it captures the real cost of the whole business that market cap alone misses; lower multiples are cheaper relative to earnings or sales.
Profitability & financials
Return on equity (ROE) is 1.6%, below the sector average (4.0%). The operating margin is 5.4%. The debt ratio is 131.0%, so the financial structure is moderate.
Growth FY2025 · annual report (consolidated)
| Item | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $346.8M | $290.2M | $312.5M | +7.71% ↑ faster |
| Operating profit | -$30.6M | -$6.3M | $16.8M | — |
| Net profit | -$35.7M | -$46.0M | $3.5M | — |
| 5-year | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $252.7M | $404.7M | $346.8M | $290.2M | $312.5M |
| Operating profit | $38.5M | $69.8M | -$30.6M | -$6.3M | $16.8M |
| Net profit | $15.0M | $64.3M | -$35.7M | -$46.0M | $3.5M |
| Revenue CAGR | 4-yr avg 5.46% | ||||
Revenue rose 7.7% year over year (2023 ₩523.2 billion → 2024 ₩437.8 billion → 2025 ₩471.6 billion), and the three-year trend is 'mixed'. The pace of growth also quickened from the prior year. Over the 5 years on record, revenue compound annual growth (CAGR) is 5.5%. The two-year revenue CAGR is -5.1%. In the most recent quarter (Q1 2026), revenue was 32.0% higher than the same period a year earlier.
Latest quarterly results Q1 2026 · vs year-ago
Technical indicators
What stands out
- —
Points to watch
- Assets that can be turned to cash within a year fall short of near-term liabilities (current ratio 90.6%).
- Operating profit barely covers the interest bill (interest coverage below 1x).
- The price is high versus peers, so expectations already appear priced in.
Recent news & events searched · sourced
- 2026-02-09Earnings2025 earnings-structure-change disclosure - swing back to operating profit. Higher domestic distribution prices from refrigerant quota cuts and expanded North America-bound chemical-equipment orders were cited as the main drivers of the revenue and profit improvement.The company officially confirmed that a loss-making operating profit swung to a profit. However, pretax profit was still a loss, revealing that the operating improvement had not yet fully carried through to net profit. Source
- 2026-03-18FilingFiled the 2025 annual report - consolidated revenue of about ₩471.6 billion and confirmed positive operating profit. Confirmed a single-segment structure in fluorine compounds (refrigerants, semiconductor gases, secondary-battery materials) and the subsidiary stake composition (Hantech about 66%).The turnaround results are finalized on an audited basis. The business structure and consolidation scope of subsidiaries are set out in official documents. Source
- 2026-03-24FilingExchange-right exercise disclosure - the exchange right on the third private-placement exchangeable bonds, issued with Foosung's held shares in the subsidiary Hantech as the exchange target, was exercised (exchange price ₩38,150).Not new-share issuance of Foosung's own stock (shareholder dilution) but funding and equity cleanup mediated by held shares. Valuation gains and losses on such exchangeable bonds are one source of net-profit volatility. Source
- 2026-05-15EarningsFiled the Q1 2026 report - revenue about ₩141.4 billion (+32% year on year), operating profit about ₩9.3 billion. However, a net loss of about ₩7.2 billion.Confirmed accelerating revenue and an operating-profit recovery. At the same time, reconfirmed the financial structure in which a net loss occurs despite an operating profit. Source
Figure cross-check computed ↔ external
| Metric | Computed | External | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 operating profit (swing to profit) | ₩25.4 billion | ₩22.2 billion | Confirmed | link |
| Q1 2026 operating profit | ₩9.3 billion(base) | approx. ₩9.3 billion | Confirmed | link |
| 2025 revenue (consolidated) | ₩471.6 billion(base) | ₩471.6 billion | Confirmed | link |
| 2026 full-year net-profit outlook | — | — | Unverified | link |
Recent filings
- 2026-06-01Corporate governance report
- 2026-05-15PeriodicQuarterly report
- 2026-03-26Shareholders' meeting notice
- 2026-03-24Disclosure
- 2026-03-18Audit report
- 2026-03-18PeriodicAnnual business report
- 2026-03-05Disclosure
- 2026-03-05Shareholders' meeting notice
- 2026-02-27Shareholders' meeting notice
📖 Plain-language glossary — expand if you are new to this
- P/E
- How many times a year's net profit the price is worth (lower is cheaper relative to earnings). The P/E here is on trailing (last full-year) results; for companies whose earnings swing fast (memory chips and other cyclicals/high-growth), a forward P/E on this year's expected earnings is more accurate.
- P/B
- Price relative to net assets (equity). Around 1x means it trades near book value; below 1x means below book.
- P/S
- Price relative to a year's revenue — useful for growth companies with thin earnings.
- Net debt / EV
- Net debt = interest-bearing debt − cash. Negative means more cash than debt (net cash). EV (enterprise value) = market cap + net debt, closer to what it would cost to buy the whole business.
- EV/EBIT · EV/EBITDA · EV/Sales
- Enterprise value against operating profit (EBIT), EBITDA, or revenue. Unlike P/E these reflect debt and cash; lower is cheaper relative to earnings power or sales.
- FCF / FCF yield
- Free cash flow = operating cash − capex, the cash actually left over. FCF yield = FCF ÷ market cap; higher means more cash generated per unit of market value.
- Intrinsic value (DCF)
- Future free cash flow (or, for some capex-heavy but profitable names, forecast earnings) discounted to today to estimate per-share value. Because it shifts a lot with the discount-rate and growth assumptions, it is shown as a bear/base/bull range, and the basis and assumptions are disclosed in one line beneath it.
- ROE
- How much profit the company earns in a year on its equity (%). Higher means better returns on capital.
- EPS / BPS
- Earnings per share / net assets (book value) per share.
- Operating / net margin
- Profit left from the core business / final profit after tax and interest, per unit of revenue.
- Debt ratio
- Debt relative to equity (%). Higher means more reliance on borrowing (norms vary by sector).
- Current ratio
- Assets convertible to cash within a year against debt due within a year. Above 100% leaves some short-term headroom.
- Interest coverage
- How many times operating profit covers the interest owed. Below 1x means operating profit alone struggles to cover interest.
- Dividend yield / payout ratio
- The year's dividend as a % of today's price / the share of earnings paid out as dividends.
- Revenue CAGR
- Multi-year growth expressed as a single yearly average (compound annual growth rate).
- RSI (short-term signal)
- Whether recent price action is overheated or beaten down. Above 70 is overbought, below 30 oversold.
- MA20 / MA60 (moving averages)
- The 20- and 60-day average price. Price above them signals a firmer short-term trend.
- vs 52-week high
- How far below the past year's peak the price sits now (%).
All figures are for reference only; how they read varies by sector and over time.
Sources: Korea FSC market-price API (data.go.kr), OpenDART, KRX/KIND — public data only.
Bong Stocks presents public-data-based information for reference only. It is not investment advice and contains no target prices, ratings, or buy/sell recommendations. Verify independently before making any decision.