Ev Advanced Material

EV Advanced Material is a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) manufacturer founded in 2004 and listed on KOSDAQ in 2010, having changed its corporate name from ACT to its current form in June 2021.

Its core FPCB products, mostly double-sided boards, are supplied primarily into IT electronics such as mobile phones, tablets, and display modules.

Its main customers are LG Group affiliates including LG Innotek, LG Electronics, and LG Display, while the company has diversified into Heesung Electronics and Samsung Electro-Mechanics. More recently it has expanded into automotive-grade FPCB for electric vehicles, targeting new customers in that market.

As a new growth area, its transparent display subsidiary Actvision has entered the digital signage market, with display revenue growing sharply year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026. Production is split between a domestic plant in Daegu and a Vietnamese subsidiary that has been operating since 2019.

Affiliates include tire-mold maker Dynamic Design, in which the company holds roughly an 18.93% stake. SC Engineering, an EPC and biohealth holding company acquired in 2025 along with its subsidiary Celontech, was divested in early 2026 to strengthen the balance sheet and refocus on the core FPCB business.

Separately, in 2021 the company invested $8.5 million in Taiwan-based solid-state battery developer ProLogium, becoming its first Korean investor, and this stake is currently treated as a non-core strategic investment asset.

Consolidated revenue in FY2025 fell 28.0% year-on-year to 58.96 billion won from 81.92 billion won in FY2024, while the operating result swung back into a loss of 3.18 billion won after posting an operating profit of 2.57 billion won in 2024.

The net loss attributable to owners widened to 18.65 billion won in 2025 from 8.29 billion won in 2024.

On a quarterly basis, losses persisted through 3Q2025 (revenue 13.85 billion won, operating loss 1.96 billion won, net loss attributable to owners 2.47 billion won) and 4Q2025 (revenue 11.27 billion won, operating loss 1.79 billion won, net loss attributable to owners 7.20 billion won).

The company then turned profitable in 1Q2026 with revenue of 15.88 billion won, operating profit of 354.79 million won, and net profit attributable to owners of 200.84 million won, extending the improvement into 2Q2026 with revenue of 20.34 billion won, operating profit of 1.51 billion won, and net profit attributable to owners of 1.45 billion won.

However, because of the large 4Q2025 loss, the trailing four quarters from 3Q2025 through 2Q2026 still show a combined net loss attributable to owners of 8.02 billion won.

Looking at annual figures from 2022 through 2025, operating profit was positive only in 2024, while the debt ratio fell sharply from 69.9% in 2022 to 11.6% in 2023 before rising again to 24.6% in 2024 and 32.9% in 2025.

On the cash flow side, operating cash flow was a net inflow of 9.89 billion won in 2024 but swung to a net outflow of 3.49 billion won in 2025, suggesting that the recent quarterly profit recovery has not yet fully translated into annual cash generation.

FPCB demand is closely tied to finished IT electronics shipment volumes, meaning production swings at major customers directly affect results, and past slowdowns in mobile and IT demand have led to weaker double-sided FPCB sales and deteriorating earnings.

More recently, growing EV demand has lifted sales of automotive-grade FPCB, prompting the company to pursue the EV market and build related know-how, yet cumulative consolidated revenue through 3Q2025 fell 26.5% year-on-year with both operating profit and net profit swinging negative, reflecting a clear chasm in end-market demand.

The solid-state battery industry remains in an early commercialization phase; portfolio company ProLogium has begun shipping hundreds of thousands of cells from its Taiwan facility and has secured priority access from Mercedes-Benz to its fourth-generation solid-state cells for electrical, thermal, and safety validation.

Even so, Mercedes-Benz itself is targeting 2030 for the launch of its first mass-production EV equipped with solid-state batteries, meaning several years of validation remain before widespread automotive adoption.

The domestic FPCB industry is characterized by competition between large electronics-affiliate suppliers and numerous smaller specialized makers, and the company positions itself as maintaining industry-leading know-how and production capacity to support quality and delivery performance.

Following operating profit in both consolidated and standalone terms in 1Q2026, a company representative stated that it would pursue full-year operating profit in 2026 by focusing on orders and sales of higher value-added products.

In the first half, the company recorded consolidated revenue of 36.22 billion won, operating profit of 1.86 billion won, and net profit of 1.66 billion won, which it described as a "triple" profit turnaround, and said it intends to carry this momentum into the second half.

Proceeds of 24 billion won from the divestment of SC Engineering are earmarked for balance-sheet stabilization and funding Vietnamese plant operations, while a capital-intensive second Vietnamese plant expansion is reportedly being considered cautiously given market conditions.

Portfolio company ProLogium is pursuing a Nasdaq listing through a merger with U.S. SPAC Translational Development Acquisition Corp. (TDAC), with a pre-merger valuation of about $3.8 billion, and the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026 pending shareholder and regulatory approval.

ProLogium's Dunkirk gigafactory in France is undergoing phased infrastructure work including grid connection, targeting site energization in early October 2026, with production ramp-up expected between the fourth quarter of 2028 and the first quarter of 2029, followed by formal mass production and deliveries in the second quarter of 2029. This timeline suggests that realizing value from the ProLogium stake could still take considerable time.