One Tesla deal propels little-known family to $1.2 billion fortune

Tesla has created massive wealth globally, from tycoons behind battery makers to individual investors.

Now, with a single order from Elon Musk’s electric-car maker, another family has entered the ranks of the ultra-rich.

Shares in L&F Co., a producer of high-nickel cathodes that are key to making batteries for electric vehicles, have soared 82 per cent this year as the South Korea company won a multi billion-dollar order from Tesla. For Chairman Hur Jae-hong and people related to him, that means their listed holdings are now worth more than $US800 million ($1.2 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The $US2.9 billion Tesla order cements Hur’s role as a dealmaker and provides a new source of wealth for his family, whose fortune has been closely tied to LG Group. While the US carmaking giant has been using L&F’s cathodes for years through batteries supplied by LG Energy Solution Ltd., this is the first time it becomes a direct client — providing one of L&F’s biggest contracts ever.

“L&F has been ready for further growth,” said Wooho Rho, an analyst with Meritz Securities Co. in Seoul. “The company’s direction is centred on technology and production efficiency, so it seems to have good DNA.”

Hur’s great-grandfather, Huh Man-jung, co-founded in 1947 what has become LG, a conglomerate that produces everything from consumer electronics to electric-vehicle batteries. Another branch of the family set up energy-to-construction giant GS Group in 2004, while L&F began in 2000, after electronic-component manufacturer Seronics Co. — which Hur’s grandfather started in 1968 — decided to expand into LCD backlight units, mainly targeting LG Display Co. Seronics owns 14.4 per cent of L&F.

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Like L&F, shares of companies that provide components or materials used to make electric cars have surged in recent years, generating huge amounts of wealth for their owners.

Ryu Kwang-ji, the chairman of chemical manufacturer Kum Yang Co., has a stake worth some $US1.4 billion after the stock jumped more than 1,600 per cent in the past year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the latest corporate filing. Ecopro Co., a maker of battery materials, has climbed about 500 per cent in 2023 alone, boosting the value of founder Lee Dong-chae and his family’s holdings to $US3.1 billion. The rise has raised eyebrows in the past, and Lee was convicted of trading with undisclosed information last year, a ruling that prosecutors have appealed for a different sentencing.