Doosan - History

History

The Doosan Group, founded in 1896. The company began as the Park Seung Jik Store in 1896 in Baeogai (now Jongno 4-ga, Seoul). Since then, Doosan has developed into a multinational, diversified business empire, with particular emphasis on consumer goods, manufacturing and the trading and construction sectors.

Doosan has developed a new global growth strategy by acquiring several major companies over the last 10 years including Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (formerly Korea Heavy Industries and Construction, a heavy industry company specializing in power and desalination plants) in 2001, Koryeo Industrial Development in 2004 and Doosan Infracore (formerly Daewoo Heavy Industries & Machinery, a company specializing in construction machinery) in 2005.

In 2006, Doosan acquired a number of global companies, including the boiler engineering company Mitsui Babcock UK (renamed Doosan Babcock) and Kvaerner IMGB, the largest casting and forging company in Romania. In 2007, Doosan acquired a leading construction machinery company, Bobcat USA, the world’s largest supplier of small construction equipment. Post acquisition of Bobcat USA into Doosan Infracore, one of the Doosan Group’s subsidiary companies specializing in medium and large construction machinery, the Doosan Group became the world’s seventh largest supplier of construction machinery. Doosan currently has 25 subsidiary companies in Korea and 86 overseas branch corporations in 35 countries. It has over 38,000 employees (20,000 in Korea and 18,000 overseas) and a worldwide network of over 1,400 dealer network.