Uber Joins Baemin Bid With Naver in 80-20 Consortium

*Editor's Note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an "AI-based personalized news recommendation and summary service" developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news articles by reader type.

- Key Summary: Uber and Naver formed an "80-20" consortium and participated in the preliminary bid, offering up to 8 trillion won to Delivery Hero, the largest shareholder of Baedal Minjok. Capping Naver's stake at 19.9% is interpreted as a move to avoid the business combination reporting obligation under the Fair Trade Act, which applies when a large business group acquires a stake of 20% or more. Separately from the Baemin acquisition, Uber has also submitted a letter of intent to acquire a stake in Kakao Mobility, with a blueprint to combine the two platforms to build an integrated lifestyle platform spanning delivery, mobility, and last-mile logistics. After experiencing successive failures in the Korean market, including the withdrawal of Uber Eats (2019) and the liquidation of the UT joint venture, Uber has shifted to a direct approach backed by massive capital, prompting interpretations that existing platform companies must reshape their response strategies.

[[LINK_1]]2. LS Cable Sets 'New Record' with 4 Trillion Won Order in U.S., Leads AI Power Super Boom[[/LINK_1]]

- Key Summary: LS Cable & System subsidiary Gaon Cable signed a 4 trillion won long-term supply contract with Meta over five years for data center busducts, closing the largest single contract in the history of Korea's cable and power equipment industry. This scale secures half of LS Cable's record sales last year (7.5882 trillion won) in a single contract. LS Electric also signed an additional 105 billion won switchboard supply contract with a U.S. big tech company on the same day, as LS affiliates concentrate the benefits of the AI power equipment super boom. With this year's capital expenditure by the four big tech companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta — expected to surge 77% year-on-year to $725 billion, the power equipment order boom is expected to continue for the time being.

[[LINK_2]]3. "Demands for Seniority Pay, Retirement Guarantees, and Codified Bonuses"...Wage System Shaken[[/LINK_2]]

- Key Summary: Starting with the Samsung Group super-enterprise union's demand for bonuses equal to 15% of operating profit, major corporate unions including HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and LG Uplus (032640) (30%), Samsung Biologics (20%), and Hyundai Motor (005380) and Kia (000270) (30% of net profit) have successively demanded codification of operating profit-linked bonuses, dealing a direct blow to corporate labor cost structures. Business circles and academia continue to warn that if operating profit-linked bonuses become fixed while employment stability and seniority pay are maintained, bonuses would effectively shift from variable costs to fixed costs, potentially causing corporate burdens to surge. President Lee Jae-myung also stated publicly the same day that "management rights must be respected just as much as labor rights," extending the debate to the political arena. Park Ji-soon, a professor at Korea University, defined this as "a corporate performance dividend demand to fixedly share operating profit," and raised the possibility of infringement on shareholder rights.

[[LINK_3]]4. Despite Inflation Warnings, Expansionary Fiscal Policy 'Out of Sync'...Korea Tops Treasury Bond Yield Rise[[/LINK_3]]

- Key Summary: Korea's 10-year treasury bond yield rose 0.853 percentage points from the start of the year, surpassing Japan (0.67%p), the United Kingdom (0.64%p), and the United States (0.42%p) to record the largest increase among major countries. Analysis suggests that a "buyers' strike" phenomenon is appearing in the bond market, driven by upgraded growth forecasts on the back of the semiconductor super-cycle, the issuance of 110 trillion won in deficit treasury bonds, and the absence of government signals on using excess tax revenue for debt repayment. As this could lead to rising corporate funding costs and weakened investment sentiment, diagnoses call for management to reexamine financial strategies and capital-raising plans. Experts predict that downward pressure on rates will be limited unless the government signals that it will use excess tax revenue for debt management.

[[LINK_4]]5. Six Economic Groups: "Samsung Electronics Strike Would Trigger National Credit Rating Decline"[[/LINK_4]]

- Key Summary: Six economic groups including the Korea Enterprises Federation issued a joint statement urging the cancellation of the Samsung Electronics union's general strike scheduled for the 21st. With semiconductor exports accounting for about 37% of the nation's total exports, and Samsung Electronics making up about 25% of KOSPI market capitalization, they warn that pushing ahead with the strike could lead to declining exports, foreign investor outflows, and a national credit rating decline. They also pointed out that since the bonus scale the union is demanding exceeds four times last year's shareholder dividends, it could seriously damage the company's investment capacity and future competitiveness. They diagnosed that if the strike materializes, calls for invoking emergency adjustment authority could become a source of uncertainty for investment sentiment related to Samsung Electronics.

- Key Summary: With the combined monthly revenue of 34 major private startups operating paid AI app services reaching $80 billion (about 120 trillion won), a structure in which Anthropic ($15 billion) and OpenAI ($55 billion) monopolize 89% is solidifying. The two-giant system, whose share has jumped 36.8 percentage points compared to early 2023, is becoming even more entrenched as major VCs such as Sequoia Capital invest in both simultaneously and Anthropic's valuation surges from $380 billion to $900 billion. Both companies, ahead of year-end IPOs, are implementing price normalization by raising token prices for new models by up to twofold or restricting access to coding tools. Analysis suggests that companies that are AI business partners or part of service supply chains should closely examine their dependence on these two models and changes in cost structures.