SK Group has completed over three years of debt reduction and is moving to the next phase of portfolio rebalancing. The company is shifting its management direction from securing liquidity through the sale and consolidation of existing businesses and affiliates to determining how to allocate the cash obtained to core businesses and artificial intelligence (AI).
According to SK Group, Chairman Chey Tae-won and over 50 CEOs from major affiliates gathered at the SKMS Research Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, from November 12 to 14 for the '2026 CEO Seminar' to discuss the implementation of 'Portfolio Rebalancing 2.0.'
The principles of Rebalancing 2.0 focus on balancing financial health and future investments by allocating capital based on cash generation capabilities.
SK Group's transition to Rebalancing 2.0 comes as the financial improvement efforts from the previous phase have effectively concluded. A key indicator of this progress is the group's debt reduction. Over the past two years, SK Group has reduced its net borrowings by 43.77 trillion won, and the number of affiliates has decreased from 219 to 151. The debt ratio of the holding company, SK Inc., has dropped to 69.5%, down 16.8 percentage points from the previous year.
The company has streamlined its business structure, which had become unwieldy due to excessive liquidity during the pandemic, and is now focused on enhancing profitability in its core businesses and developing a capital allocation strategy as part of Rebalancing 2.0.
The most promising area identified by Chairman Chey at the CEO seminar is the AI flywheel, which leverages the competitiveness of AI semiconductors to expand AI data center and AI factory operations. This expansion is expected to create a positive cycle that generates demand for energy and AI services. Analysts note that this structure is similar to the growth model proposed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Funding for these initiatives is expected to come from SK Hynix. The company reported a record quarterly revenue of 104.62 trillion won in the third quarter, surpassing the 100 trillion won mark for the first time, which supports the group's investment capacity. As of the end of the third quarter, SK Hynix had 98.7 trillion won in cash, excluding borrowings. A generational shift in its core products is also set to occur in the fourth quarter, with HBM4 (6th generation) expected to surpass HBM3E (5th generation) in both shipments and revenue.
The data center initiative is led by SK Telecom's affiliates, which established a two-company system dividing roles between business development (SK Hyper) and infrastructure operation (SK Horizon) this past summer. The goal is to have the Ulsan AI data center operational by the second half of 2029, with three to four global cloud providers identified as potential business partners.
Energy initiatives will be managed by SK Innovation, which plans to sell energy packages for data centers that include liquefied natural gas (LNG), renewable energy, energy storage systems (ESS), and small modular reactors (SMR). Construction and materials support will come from the construction affiliate, SK Ecoplant. Notably, 82% of the company's revenue in the first half of the year was derived from AI and semiconductor-related businesses.
However, challenges remain as SK Group pursues Rebalancing 2.0. The company must first address the burdens posed by its battery and petrochemical sectors, which continue to weigh on its financial structure. As of the first half of this year, SK Innovation reported a consolidated net borrowing of 26 trillion won.
A business insider remarked, "How the funds secured during the semiconductor supercycle are linked to affiliate operations will determine the success of Rebalancing 2.0. The resignation of Jensen Huang has also increased uncertainty in the global AI and semiconductor markets, which poses additional risks."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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