In 2020, LG Chem announced that it has sold most of its LCD polarizer business to China’s Ningbo Shanshan, in a $1.1 billion deal. LG Chem retained its automotive LCD polarizer and its OLED polarizer businesses. The company now announced that it sold all of its remaining display polarizer business to two companies, for around $800 million deal - the polarizer materials business to Hefei Xinmei Materials Technology ($616 million) and the polarizer production business to Shanjin Optoelectronics ($200 million).
LG Chem aims to focus on its main growth engines, namely battery materials, green materials and life sciences. The company did not detail its plans for its remaining OLED businesses.
LG Chem current produces OLED stack materials. Last year it was reported that the company started to supply blue host material to BOE (replacing its current supplier, Idemitsu Kosan). Earlier it was reported that LG Chem is supplying some of LG Display's deuterium blue OLED emitters.
In 2021 LG Chem announced that it has developed a new PET-based foldable OLED cover film, thinner and more durable than both polyimide films and Ultra-Thin Glass, currently used in foldable OLEDs.
LG Chem has signed an agreement with UDC to co-develop OLED host materials back in 2019, and In 2017, Idemitsu Kosan and LG Chem announced a collaboration agreement that allows both companies to use each other OLED material-related patents in certain areas.
