LG Energy Solution Closes Honda Ohio JV Building Sale at ₩3.74T, ₩483B Below December Plan
LG Energy Solution (KRX: 373220), one of Korea's three major EV battery cell makers, disclosed on May 26, 2026 that it had executed the sale of building assets at its Ohio joint venture with Honda for ₩3.7416 trillion ($2.73 billion at ~1,370 KRW/USD) — roughly ₩482.7 billion (about $352 million, or 11.4%) below the ₩4.2243 trillion ($3.08 billion) figure the company had flagged when it first announced the transaction in December 2025, according to filings reported by Yonhap, Chosun Biz and Maeil Business Newspaper (MK Economy).
The disclosure was filed through DART (Korea's Financial Supervisory Service electronic disclosure system) on the morning of May 26.
What changed between December and May
When LGES first disclosed the planned divestment in late 2025, the headline price was ₩4.2243 trillion — reported at the time as $2.85 billion at the contract-date exchange rate of ₩1,478.9/USD, per Just-Auto's coverage of the original announcement. Five months later, when the deal was executed and re-disclosed on May 26, the price had been written down by close to half a trillion won.
LGES attributed the gap to a third-party revaluation. "External institutions evaluate asset value taking market conditions into account, so the asset value was adjusted," a company spokesperson told Chosun Biz. Korean outlet Newsway, reading the same filing, framed the cut as a reflection of "investment-pace adjustments" across North American battery capacity amid softer EV demand and the phase-out of US consumer EV credits.
The buyer — Honda Development and Manufacturing of America, the US development and production arm of Japan's second-largest automaker — is unchanged from the December agreement (Chosun Biz, Yonhap).
What's actually moving — and what isn't
The transaction covers only the factory building and related fixtures at the joint venture, called L-H Battery Company. Land and production equipment stay with the JV (Chosun Biz, MK Economy, Just-Auto).
After closing, LGES will lease the building back from Honda's US arm and continue battery production at the site — a sale-and-leaseback structured to free up cash without disrupting operations (Yahoo Finance / Just-Auto; Newsway). The Ohio plant, located in Fayette County near Jeffersonville and designed for approximately 40 GWh of annual cell capacity per LG Energy Solution's own press release, is scheduled to begin commercial output this year, supplying batteries for Honda and Acura EV models in North America. Chosun Biz adds that the line will also produce energy storage system (ESS) cells.
Why ₩483 billion matters
LGES had positioned the original ₩4.22 trillion deal as a liquidity event sized to roughly 7% of its consolidated total assets of ₩60.31 trillion ($44.0 billion) at year-end 2024 (Just-Auto, Yahoo Finance). The May execution figure of ₩3.7416 trillion comes to about 6.2% of that same base — still a meaningful cash inflow, but the ₩482.7 billion haircut is larger than the quarterly capital-expenditure run-rate disclosed by several Korean battery peers.
The revaluation also lands during a stretch in which Korean and Japanese battery partners have been openly recalibrating North American capacity plans against slowing EV uptake — context flagged in both the December coverage (Just-Auto, Yahoo Finance) and the May follow-ups (Newsway, MK Economy). The 2023 LGES-Honda JV was originally announced as a roughly $4.4 billion total investment (with $3.5 billion committed directly to the JV) under a 50:50 ownership split, with formal incorporation on January 13, 2023 and groundbreaking near Jeffersonville on February 28, 2023, per the joint LGES-Honda press release.
What to watch next
Three near-term checkpoints will indicate whether this ₩483 billion revaluation is an isolated mark or the leading edge of a broader pattern across Korea's battery-cell trio:
- LGES Q2 2026 earnings, where the realized cash inflow from the leaseback and any related book gain or loss should be itemized.
- Disclosure of the monthly lease cost for the Ohio building — the rent LGES now pays Honda's US arm will offset some of the upfront cash benefit and reshape the JV's unit economics.
- Whether Samsung SDI or SK On, the other two members of Korea's EV battery-cell trio, announce comparable sale-and-leaseback or asset-value revisions on their own US JV assets in the coming quarters.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. KRW amounts are converted at an indicative ₩1,370 per USD for consistency; the original December 2025 disclosure was reported using the then-spot rate of ₩1,478.9/USD, per Just-Auto.
Sources
- Yonhap News Agency — LGES sells Honda US JV battery plant building for ₩3.7T, May 26, 2026
- Chosun Biz — LGES disposes US JV plant building to Honda for ₩3.7T, May 26, 2026
- Maeil Business Newspaper — LGES sells Honda US JV battery plant building for ₩3.7T, May 26, 2026
- Newsway — LGES Ohio building sale framed as investment-pace adjustment, May 26, 2026
- The Elec — LGES-Honda Ohio JV building transfer, May 26, 2026
- Just-Auto — LGES to sell Ohio battery plant building to Honda for $2.85B (original Dec 2025 disclosure)
- Yahoo Finance — LGES to sell Ohio JV building to Honda, December 2025
- LG Energy Solution Newsroom — LGES and Honda incorporate L-H Battery JV, January 2023
