SEOUL/HONG KONG :MBK Partners is seeking to put up for sale its embattled South Korean supermarket chain Homeplus, to avert liquidation of the retailer, the Northeast Asia-focused private equity firm said on Friday.
In March, MBK filed for a court-led restructuring of South Korea’s No. 2 grocery retailer to avoid bankruptcy of the firm, reeling from the fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic and growing competition from e-commerce rivals.
A recent court-commissioned review showed the retailer’s liquidation value was higher than its value as a going concern, MBK said in a statement.
The retailer plans to issue new shares and sell them to a buyer who will control the business, it added, while MBK will cancel the shares worth 2.5 trillion Korean won ($1.83 billion)it currently owns.
In a separate statement on Thursday, Homeplus said the company had a liquidation value of 3.7 trillion won, with 6.8 trillion won of total assets.
The sale will target strategic buyers, said a person familiar with the situation.
In 2024, MBK launched a sale process for Homeplus Express, the supermarket business of Homeplus and engaged with strategic investors, said the source, and a second one with knowledge of the matter.
But that process had to stop as Homeplus entered court-led restructuring, the first source said.
Both sources sought anonymity as the information was not public.
The private equity firm struck a deal in 2015 to buy Homeplus from Britain’s Tesco for 4 billion pounds.
South Korean prosecutors are investigating whether MBK Partners approved Homeplus’s debt issue in 2025 despite prior knowledge of a credit downgrade for the retailer. MBK has denied the accusation.
In May, prosecutors banned foreign travel by the chairman of MBK Partners, Kim Byung-ju, in their investigation.
($1=1,369.6 won)
