Korea Line posts 91% jump in Q2 operating profit

Korea Line, the shipping arm of SM Group, said Tuesday its second-quarter consolidated operating profit rose 91 percent year-on-year to 63 billion won ($44.5 million), up from 33 billion won in the same period last year.

Sales for the quarter edged down 6 percent to 312.8 billion won, from 332.2 billion won a year earlier, reflecting the completion of a construction pre-sale project in the non-shipping segment. For the first half of the year, the company posted sales of 590.6 billion won and operating profit of 137.4 billion won.

A stable business structure centered on dedicated vessels, combined with expanded chartered vessel operations, drove the earnings improvement amid favorable shipping market conditions.

A company official said the results reflected the full contribution — beginning in the first quarter of this year — of two secondhand vessels acquired last year and a long-term transport contract signed in August last year with Korea East-West Power and other partners. "On top of that, to manage risks from the prolonged war in the Middle East, we reduced relatively volatile spot voyages and expanded chartered vessel operations, which also supported the improvement in profit margins," the official said.

Financial health also improved. Korea Line's debt-to-equity ratio stood at around 64 percent as of the second quarter, continuing a steady downward trend over the past three years. The ratio was approximately 100 percent in 2024 and around 70 percent in 2025. The company has gradually strengthened its balance sheet by using operating cash from its core shipping business and liquidity secured through pre-sale projects to pay down high-interest borrowings ahead of schedule.

CEO Min Sang-ki said the company managed to sustain steady earnings despite some turbulence in market conditions and oil prices caused by global uncertainty and volatility. "In addition to responding to short-term market shifts, we will pursue more aggressive moves into high-value-added markets and identify new business opportunities from a medium- to long-term perspective, securing the momentum for sustainable growth," he said.

Meanwhile, Korea Line appointed Min, former president of Konkuk University, as its new CEO last month.

Min earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in food engineering from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. He joined Konkuk University as a professor in 1995 and served in various roles, including dean of the graduate school and vice president for academic affairs, before serving as the university's 20th president from September 2016 to August 2020.

During his tenure as president, he pursued initiatives including expanded industry-academia cooperation, reforms to undergraduate education, and the securing of a government-funded program to promote industry linkages. He is credited with building a talent development framework suited to the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.