Samsung Display has sold its Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) factory in Suzhou, China to CSOT, the companies announced.
COST has acquired a 60% stake in Samsung Suzhou LCD (SSL) and a 100% stake in Suzhou Display (SSM) for a total of US$1.08 billion.
Samsung Suzhou LCD’s ownership structure will change to __ CSOT’s 60%, Suzhou government’s 30% and 10% owned by TCL, the parent company to CSOT.
Samsung Display plans to use the US$739 million secured from the sale of its 60% stake to own a 12% stake in CSOT.
The US$341 million secured from selling its 100% stake in Suzhou Display will be used a liquidity.
Samsung Display has previously said it plans to exit the LCD business. It has 7th generation LCD factory lines in South Korea and the Suzhou line was an 8th generation one.
The company’s LCD business has been posting losses from the rise of Chinese counterparts.
The Suzhou factory has accounted for 27% of Samsung Display’s total LCD production.
Samsung Display is planning to change its LCD line in South Korea to make Quantum Dot (QD) Display and small- to mid-sized organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels.
The company will also focus on foldable OLED panels and quantum dot nanorod display (QNED) going forward. It plans to secure QNED production technology by 2021.
Last year in October, the company announced that it would invest 13 trillion won for the next five years to develop and produce QD Displays.
