South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd. announced it will take over LG Electronics Inc.’s battery separator business at 525 billion won ($457.91 million) to cement its battery leadership upon reporting best-ever quarterly earnings for the second quarter.

The company disclosed Thursday that its operating profit in the April-June period reached a fresh high of 2.23 trillion won, soaring 290.2 percent on year and 58.4 percent on quarter, well above the market consensus of 1.03 trillion won.

Sales grew 65.2 percent from a year ago and 18.7 percent from three months ago to 11.45 trillion won, also a record high. Its net profit reached 1.63 trillion won, jumping 289.5 percent on year and 19.1 percent on quarter.

Shares of LG Chem finished Thursday unchanged at 835,000 won.

The company performed well across petrochemical, battery material and life science businesses.

Its petrochemical division delivered best quarterly performance with an operating profit of 1.32 trillion won over sales of 5.26 trillion won on strengthened demand in line with global economic revival.

Advanced material business posted an operating profit of 94.5 billion won over sales of 1.29 trillion won, driven by increased output of cathode materials.

Life science business reported an operating profit of 29.1 billion won with sales of 203 billion won thanks to launch of polio vaccines and expanded sales of existing products.

Its wholly owned battery subsidiary LG Energy Solution delivered 815.2 billion won in operating profit over sales of 5.13 trillion won.

LG Chem separately announced on the same day that it has decided to take over the chemical electronic material (CEM) unit of LG Electronics at 525 billion won to further bolster its battery business portfolio.

The chemical firm will take over the CEM unit’s production lines in Korea, Poland and China assuming about 800 employees and other intangible assets.

The latest acquisition will make LG Chem the first and sole company in the world capable of manufacturing all four key components of lithium-ion batteries—cathodes, anodes, electrolytes and separators.

The deal is part of LG Chem’s plan to invest 6 trillion won by 2025 to build a wide battery supply chain. In December, the chemical company will break ground for a cathode material factory with an annual capacity of 60,000 tons in the southeastern city of Gumi, which would increase its total cathode production capacity seven-fold to 260,000 tons by 2026 from 40,000 tons as of 2020.

The company is also preparing a joint venture with mining companies to secure stable supplies of metals used in cathode production, it said.

“The latest acquisition will enable us to strengthen the value chain for the rapidly growing battery material business. We will continue develop new growth engines to become the global No.1 batter material player,” said Shin Hak-chul, LG Chem’s vice president.

By Lee Soo-min

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