▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based customized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six news items tailored to each reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ Autonomous manufacturing AI: Manufacturing AI, once limited to detecting equipment anomalies and defects, is expanding into production planning and decisions on equipment operating conditions. After Nvidia and Siemens unveiled autonomous manufacturing technology at a German electronics plant, AI that finds its own responses to shifting production conditions has emerged as a new competitive arena in manufacturing.
■ Activism spreads: Campaigns in which multiple activist fund managers simultaneously target a single listed company are increasing, putting corporate Korea on alert. Expectations that the pressure will speed up the correction of undervaluation and improve shareholder value are running up against concerns that it could constrain management autonomy.
■ Vulnerable firms at record high: Although overall corporate profitability improved last year on the semiconductor boom, the share of companies unable to cover even their interest payments with operating profit stood at 42.9%, the highest since 2009. Analysts say strong results at a handful of companies lifted the overall average while the capacity of many others to service interest actually weakened.
[News of Interest to Corporate CEOs]
1. Beyond Defect Prediction to Process Control: 'Autonomous Manufacturing AI' Picks Up Speed
- Key summary: Autonomous manufacturing AI, which judges the optimal response on its own whenever production conditions change, has emerged as a new competitive arena in manufacturing. Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in Germany on the 19th that the next wave of artificial intelligence will be technology that interacts with the real world, including manufacturing, automobiles, heavy industry and robotics. The same day, Nvidia unveiled technology combining AI with a digital twin, or virtual factory, at a Siemens electronics plant. The two companies are jointly developing an industrial AI operating system with the goal of raising factory automation rates from the current 30% to 40% to as much as 70% to 80%. The starting point for implementation is the work of aligning data scattered across sensors, programmable logic controllers (PLC), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) under a common standard. Industry officials said the key to wider adoption is putting safeguards in place, such as the ability to reclaim control, so that equipment failures or production halts do not follow if the AI makes a wrong call.
- Key summary: Jang Young-geun, chief executive of Kakao Pay Insurance, pointed to the competitive methods of tech companies as the way for digital insurers to survive. Kakao Pay Insurance, which marked its fourth anniversary this month, is close to reaching 10 million cumulative subscribers. It operates a purpose organization (PO) system in which planning, development, design and insurance specialists form a single team for each product, and developers account for about 60% of its total workforce. In the roughly three years since the CEO took office, the company has launched more than 30 products and made 200 to 300 service improvements. Mobile phone insurance sales, which had been just one or two policies a day, have grown more than 1,000-fold, and the renewal rate for overseas travel insurance has topped 70%. Turning a profit remains a challenge, but the CEO stressed that the initial investment period is already over and that the company has entered a phase where earnings follow as revenue rises.
3. Activist Funds Rally Against Companies: 'Value-Up vs. Chilled Management'
- Key summary: Campaigns in which multiple activist fund managers publicly press the same listed company at the same time are on the rise. This month, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) received requests from Palliser Capital, Dalton Investments and Life Asset Management to expand purchases and cancellation of preferred shares. Orion was asked by Flashlight Capital Partners (FCP) and Teuton Capital to halt mergers and acquisitions outside its core business, while at Gabia, Align Partners Asset Management and Miri Capital filed for an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, signaling a proxy fight. Investment banking industry officials said campaigns by different managers overlap because the pool of targets with clear undervaluation and governance improvement opportunities is limited. Meanwhile, the total shareholder return ratio at the seven major financial holding companies where Align Partners ran campaigns rose to 44.3% in 2025 from 24.3% in 2021, though concerns have also been raised that channeling resources into dividends could erode medium- to long-term competitiveness.
[Reference News for Corporate CEOs]
4. Greece Swings to Surplus While France Sinks Into Deficit: 15 Years of Reform Split the Outcomes
- Key summary: More than 15 years after the euro zone fiscal crisis of the early 2010s, the standings of major European countries have reversed. France's national debt ratio reaches 119.3% this year and is expected to climb to 121.7% next year, while last year's fiscal deficit came to 152.5 billion euros, or 5.1% of gross domestic product, far above the European Union ceiling of 3%. Greece, by contrast, posted a fiscal surplus equal to 1.7% of GDP last year, and its national debt ratio fell 18.2 percentage points in two years to 146.1% from 164.3% in 2023. Analysts attribute the divergence to sweeping structural reforms including cuts to public sector wages and pensions, tax increases and privatization. On the same day, France's 10-year government bond yield spiked to 4.9877% during trading, exceeding Greece's 4.248% in a reversal of the usual order.
5. Chinese Battery Price War and Customer Defections Deliver CATL a Sharp Earnings Miss
- Key summary: Net profit growth at CATL, the world's largest battery maker, fell to its lowest level in seven quarters. Third-quarter net profit was 21.25 billion yuan, rising just 14.5% from a year earlier and falling far short of the market forecast of 41.2%, while revenue growth of 58.58% also missed the 60.2% projection. Chinese electric vehicle makers, whose profitability has deteriorated amid overproduction, have been lowering procurement prices and moving away from CATL. Compounding the impact, Chinese authorities fully ended the lithium-ion battery consumption tax exemption that had been in place since 2015 and began levying a 2% tax last month. JPMorgan cut its investment rating to neutral, and inventories in the January-September period surged 53% from a year earlier. CATL, however, says it remains positive on demand next year.
6. Rates Are Rising, and a Record 42.9% of Companies Cannot Cover Their Interest
- Key summary: According to the Bank of Korea's "2025 Annual Corporate Business Analysis" released on the 21st, the share of companies with an interest coverage ratio below 100% was 42.9% last year, up 0.1 percentage point from 42.8% a year earlier and the highest since 2009. The interest coverage ratio is operating profit divided by interest expenses, and a reading below 100% means operating profit is not enough to cover interest costs. The share of companies with operating losses also rose to 34.4% from 33.9%. While the operating profit margin for all companies climbed to 5.2% from 4.6%, the interest coverage ratio for the median company fell for a fourth straight year, to 194.0% last year from 356.6% in 2021. Large companies saw their operating profit margin rise to 6.7% from 5.6%, while the figure for small and medium-sized enterprises slipped to 2.8% from 3.0%, underscoring a clear gap by company size. The BOK said the rise in the share of vulnerable companies may not continue.
