Korea Small Cap Gem #50: Seah Besteel Holdings - A Potential Beneficiary of SpaceX IPO
In 2026, one of the emerging investment themes will likely be the main value-chain suppliers to SpaceX which is gearing up for a huge IPO next year.
Seah Besteel Holdings is expected to be one of the specialty steel suppliers to SpaceX. Seah is investing about US$155 million to build a special alloy plant in the US.
In addition to SpaceX, Seah Besteel Holdings plans to gain additional major US customers including Boeing Co (BA US), Lockheed Martin (LMT US), GE Aerospace, and Pratt & Whitney.
In 2026, one of the emerging investment themes will likely be the main value-chain suppliers to SpaceX which is gearing up for a huge IPO next year. In this insight, we discuss about a Korean small cap company called Seah Besteel Holdings (market cap of 1.25 trillion won or US$850 million), which could be one of the key beneficiaries of the potential IPO of SpaceX in 2026.
Key Catalyst
Seah Besteel Holdings is expected to be one of the steel suppliers to SpaceX. Although the exact amount of contract order from SpaceX to supply steel has not been revealed by the Seah Besteel Holdings, several local news media mentioned in 2024 that the initial contract amount could be about 500 billion won. Furthermore, Seah Group is investing about US$155 million to build a special alloy plant in the US (close to the SpaceX headquarters in Texas), which is expected to be completed by 2H 2026.
Seah Global Holdings and Seah Supperalloy Technologies are new entities set up in the US to build the specialty metal plant. The latter is the special alloy manufacturing unit. Once the factory’s construction is completed it is expected to churn out 6,000 tons of special alloys annually. In addition to SpaceX, Seah Besteel Holdings plans to gain additional major US customers including Boeing Co (BA US), Lockheed Martin (LMT US), GE Aerospace, and Pratt & Whitney.
Special alloys are high-performance metals made with a mixture of specialty materials such as nickel, titanium, cobalt and aluminum. Demand for such specialty metals mainly comes from the aerospace, defense and space industries thanks to their high-temperature strength, toughness, corrosion resistance and weight.
While non-specialty steels are melted at 1,500 degrees Celsius, these specialty metals can withstand temperatures of 1,900 degrees and higher. Special alloys currently account for about 4% of SeAH CSS’s total sales, and their portion is expected to jump once the new specialty metal plant is built in the United States which accounts for about 40% of the global special alloy sales. According to Allied Market Research, the global special alloy market is forecast to more than double to $15 billion in 2031 from $6.8 billion in 2021.
