Jungheung took Daewoo E&C off state hands for ₩2.1T and built Korea's No.3 contractor

Daewoo E&C was orphaned twice: by the 1999 collapse of the Daewoo Group, then by Kumho Asiana's own crisis, which forced the 2006 buyer to resell during the 2008 crash. Korea Development Bank took the builder in 2010 when no conglomerate would touch it, injected roughly ₩3.2 trillion of public money to normalize its finances, and watched a 2017 sale to Hoban collapse over losses on the Safi power project in Morocco.

The 2021 auction was messy. Jungheung Construction bid ₩2.3 trillion in June, then KDB Investment allowed a rebid, and Jungheung won as preferred bidder at ₩2.1 trillion over a consortium of DS Networks, SkyLake Equity Partners and IPM — provoking union protests and complaints that taxpayers were shortchanged. The deal for KDB's controlling 50.75% was signed in December 2021 by Jungheung founder Jung Chang-sun, with pledges to keep all staff, leave management alone, and rebuild the balance sheet.

It worked. The purchase instantly made the Naju-based coalition Korea's third-largest contractor. In 2023 Daewoo E&C ranked third in the government's construction capability evaluation, grew first-half sales 25.4%, and booked ₩2.2 trillion of overseas orders in six months — beating its ₩1.8 trillion annual target on work such as Iraq's Al Faw Grand Port and Nigeria's LNG Train 7. By the first quarter of 2026 its operating profit was ₩255.6 billion, up 68.9% on the year, and its order backlog reached ₩51.9 trillion.

Daewoo E&C ranked third in Korea's 2023 capability review with overseas orders beating targets; by 2026 its order book hit ₩51.9T and its shares a record high

The asset was never broken — only its ownership was. Daewoo's overseas engineering capability kept winning work even while the state carried it, so a buyer was buying capability, not a rescue.

Jungheung, a residential builder from Naju, needed heavy-construction credentials to climb the rankings; the chaebol suitors did not, which is why they bid lower or stayed away.

After the 2017 Hoban fiasco, KDB optimized for a closing bidder with management stability, not the headline price — and accepted ₩200 billion less to get it.

The rebid that let Jungheung cut its own offer was denounced as malpractice, but it closed a sale the state had failed to execute for a decade.

When a state bank has failed for a decade to sell an asset, sell to the buyer who needs it most, not the highest bidder: Jungheung valued Daewoo's capability more than any chaebol did.

The antitrust regulator cleared the takeover in February 2022 and Jungheung kept its promise not to interfere in management. A construction downturn cut Daewoo E&C's first-quarter 2024 operating profit 35%, but the company stayed solidly in the black, and in April 2026 Korea Herald reported record results: operating profit of ₩255.6 billion, net profit tripled to ₩195.8 billion, an order backlog of ₩51.9 trillion — about 6.4 times annual revenue — and a record share price of ₩40,350, more than twelve times its 52-week low.