On 14 June 2023, Circuit Foil Luxembourg appointed a new director to its board of directors: Lee Sangil, whose business address is 153 Nonhyeon-ro, Skylake Building, 4th floor, Seocho-gu, Seoul. The address is that of Skylake Investment. At that time, no one was yet speaking publicly about the Korean fund’s acquisition of the Wiltz factory. It was not until 21 January 2026 – two and a half years later – that the transfer agreement was signed. Lee Sangil, meanwhile, had become chairman of Skylake, having been promoted as part of the generational transition organised by Chin Daeje. He had been managing the asset before his employer became the purchaser.
This agreement was signed on 21 January 2026, amended on 5 February 2026, and came into effect on 28 April 2026. The transferring entity, Volta Energy Solutions – a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of Solus Advanced Materials, formerly Doosan Solus – is transferring all its shares to Skylake Quantum Leap 2 Limited. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.
Skylake Quantum Leap 2 Limited is part of the Skylake group, founded in 2006 in Seoul by Chin Daeje, former CEO of the memory division at Samsung Electronics – under his leadership, the division became one of the world’s leading chip manufacturers – and subsequently Minister of Information and Communications for the Republic of Korea from 2003 to 2006. The shareholding structure is clearly documented: Skylake Investment, wholly owned by Chin Daeje, has established a separate management company, Skylake Equity Partners, owned equally by Chin Daeje (50%) and the current management team (50%). Chin Daeje and Min Hyunki serve as co-CEOs. Lee Sangil and Kim Youngmin, two executives born in the 1970s, have been promoted to presidents and are playing an increasingly significant role in the group’s governance – a generational transition deliberately organised to mitigate the risk of a one-man leadership structure.
Valued at 175 million last year
This sale brings to a close a difficult period for the Wiltz plant. Circuit Foil recorded three consecutive years of losses: a loss of €4.6m in 2022, €6.4m in 2023 and €1.3m in 2024, with the latter year marking a significant recovery. Bank debt stood at €57.2m as at 31 December 2024, partially backed by guarantees from the Luxembourg government granted as part of post-Ukraine support. Solus Advanced Materials had kept the company afloat through capital injections and successive subordinated loans, including three tranches totalling at least €26.5m between 2021 and 2023.
The transaction comes against a backdrop of increased competition for control of this strategic asset. An attempted takeover by the Chinese group Defu Technology, valued at €175m, had failed due to the conditions imposed by the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy. The move to a Korean private equity fund offers a different response to the challenges of industrial sovereignty: Circuit Foil produces the ultra-smooth copper foils required for cutting-edge semiconductors, including those used by Nvidia and Intel for artificial intelligence applications. Skylake was no stranger to Solus Advanced Materials’ operations: the firm had been involved in the spin-off of Doosan Solus in 2020, when the Doosan Group sold the entity to finance its restructuring. Circuit Foil was then a subsidiary of that company.
For Skylake, the acquisition of a European industrial asset marks a significant shift in its sector focus. The firm has built its track record on investments in Korean technology, ranging from semiconductors to enterprise software. It is taking over a company that is currently stabilising, with significant industrial assets – over €74m in net tangible fixed assets – and a strong position in growth markets: high-performance packaging, 5G applications, and copper foil for electric vehicle batteries. The existing team, with Cho Jung Hyuk based in Wiltz and Lee Sangil in Seoul, ensures managerial continuity that the new shareholder will not need to build from scratch.
Neither company has contacted us to find out what the new shareholder’s intentions are.
