This undated file photo shows an outlet of the supermarket chain Homeplus, British retail giant Tesco’s South Korean unit. A consortium led by MBK Partners, a Seoul-based private equity fund, signed a 7.2 trillion won (US$5.98 billion) deal to buy Homeplus, industry sources said on Sept. 7, 2015. (Yonhap).
If any ROK Heads have a few billion dollars lying around you could use it to buy the Korean retail giant Homeplus if you are interested. It will be interesting to see what changes will be made once Homeplus is sold off:
Private equity groups are expected to submit final bids to take over the nation’s second-largest supermarket chain Homeplus, valued at about 7 trillion won ($5.86 billion), amid growing speculation that two Korean retail firms are mulling to join the deal when the preferred bidder is announced, according to sources on Sunday.
Five shortlisted private equity firms formed three consortiums for Monday’s final bidding for Homeplus, wholly owned by Tesco. The British retail giant put up its Korean unit for auction in a bid to scale back the mounting debt and fund a turnaround plan.
Sources said the Korean confectionery company Orion and local retail giant Hyundai Department store are eyeing to join the bid as strategic investors.
“As Orion continues to show a strong will to buy Homeplus, there’s potential that it will link up with a private equity fund to be selected as a preferred bidder,” an official at an investment bank said.
The snack-maker, which failed to make the final list of five bidders, has been seeking a foray into the supermarket industry as its growth slows.
The preferred bidder is expected to be announced in September while the takeover deal to be wrapped up by the end of this year. [Korea Herald]
You can read more at the link.
Indictments have now been released for Homeplus executives involved in the customer data selling scandal:
Homeplus Co., the South Korean unit of British retail giant Tesco PLC, has been indicted on charges of illegally selling customer data to insurance firms in exchange for money, a government investigation team said Sunday.
Homeplus is accused of gathering more than 24 million pieces of customer data, including birth dates, number of children and other personal information, and selling them to a number of insurance firms for a total of 23.17 billion won (US$21.14 million), the investigation team said. Most of the information were collected under the guise of conducting a lottery for free gifts.
Homeplus chief Do Sung-hwan, five other former and current company executives and staff, and two officials from the insurance companies have also been indicted over their involvement in the case, according to the team.
Do and the other Homeplus staff are accused of requiring customers to submit personal information in order to enter draws for the gifts.
Most customers who entered the draws were unaware that their personal information would be sold to insurance companies as such details were provided in barely visible print on the coupons. Some of the customers were not even contacted upon winning a prize, the investigation team said. [Yonhap]
Isn’t this though pretty much what Facebook does every day?
