Flera koreanska jättar går med i The $8.3 Miljard “HANSSEM Hemförvärvskriget”. Den kinesiska marknaden är i allvarlig nedgång.

The takeover battle for Korea’s largest home furnishing company is heating up.

With the entry of Korean retail giant, LX Group, the takeover competition for HANSSEM Home is intensifying. Tidigare, Sydkoreas varuhus Shinsegae, Hyundai Livart, ett dotterbolag till Hyundai Department Store, and Korea’s Lotte announced their intention to acquire HANSSEM in conjunction with South Korean private equity firm IMM PrivateEquity (IMM), but with the addition of LXHausys, ett byggmaterialföretag som ägs av LX Group (en gång en del av LG), en av Koreas toppar 50 företagsgrupper, the takeover is expanding. The takeover camp is expanding.

If LX Hausys acquires HANSSEM, the number one company in the interior design and building materials industry, the landscape of the Korean building materials and interior design industry will be shaken up dramatically. The market share of the top players would be recalculated.

According to Korean media sources, LX Hausys held a board meeting on 6 September and announced that it would invest 300 miljarder won (RMB 1.7 miljard) as a strategic investor in a private equity fund that IMM plans to set up to acquire HANSSEM. dock, den slutliga investeringen har ännu inte bekräftats.

Lotte, Shinsegae and Hyundai Department Store Group have already announced their plans to participate in the acquisition. LX Hausys is considered to have the most competitive advantage given the synergies with HANSSEM’s business.

With the recent divestment of LX Group from LG Group, its business scope has been expanded from traditional building materials to the whole house. Building materials account for approximately 70% från LX Hausys’ försäljning, täckande fönster, dörrar, golv, paneler, artificial marble and more. The division recorded sales of KRW 659.6 billion in the second quarter of this year, upp 25% år på år. LX Hausys har den största marknadsandelen i fönsterkategorin för fastighetsprojekt i Korea. It also has strength in high value-added product lines such as marble kitchen sinks and PF insulation.

HANSSEM has an overwhelming presence in the Korean retail market, having started with kitchen furniture in 1970 and then interior furniture in 1997, and has now expanded its business to include building materials such as bathrooms, fönster och golv. It is currently the number one market player in Korea in kitchen furniture and interior furniture. Dess kärnåterförsäljare, quality shops and the number of shops are the most important reasons for attracting the acquirer.

Enligt koreanska medier, HANSSEM has showrooms and oversized experience centers in 15 key locations in the areas of Bangbae-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, Nunhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Pangyo-dong, Daegu and Hanam-si, Korea. HANSSEM products are exclusively available at these locations, liksom 550 online shops for re-house remodeling, 240 kitchen furniture shops and 80 flagship interior design shops.

HANSSEM employs 8,000 people specializing in remodeling and 2,500 in interior design sales. Bolagets försäljning förra året (267.5 miljarder KRW) mer än fyrdubblades från föregående år (65 miljarder KRW), the highest result since its founding. Dess online-kanal, the HANSSEM Mall, som ger information om anpassning av nya hem, moving houses and children’s rooms, has seen positive sales growth since the first quarter of last year. Det lockar just nu 3 miljoner kunder per månad.

I 2020, its B2C (remodeling and kitchens) division saw a 23% year-on-year increase in sales. Av detta, Re-House, which offers total remodeling solutions, växte med 33.3%. HANSSEM’s kitchen sales for second homes account for 27.5% of total sales by 2020. Together with the 30.6% of online and offline sales from the sale of furniture and home furnishings, the B2C business accounts for 69.1%.

Kitchen and Bath Information based on public data

Under andra kvartalet 2021, sales and operating profit increased by 9.6% och 22.6% respectively compared to the previous year. Remodeling segment sales increased by 24.6 percent year on year.

Kitchen and Bath Information based on public data

Trots tillväxten i storlek, HANSSEM’s overseas subsidiaries have not been as successful. The sales growth rates of HANSSEM’s US and Chinese subsidiaries have also slowed down each year for the past three years. Förra året, sales of the two subsidiaries fell by 10.2% och 3.9% respektive, while the Chinese subsidiary experienced a double-digit decline. The decline continued in the first and second quarters of this year as well with negative growth of 17.3% och 45.7%.

HANSSEM was already present in China in the early 1990s when it established Beijing HANSSEM Home Products Co Ltd and invested in a cabinet manufacturing plant in Beijing in 1995. It undertakes engineering business and has joined forces with headline companies in the pan-home furnishing industry to develop some engineering projects.

It was found that the shareholder of Beijing HANSSEM Home Products Co Ltd, Hansem (Kina) Investment Co Ltd, had increased its registered capital in 2020, but this year Beijing HANSSEM Home Products Co Ltd had a succession of changes in legal representatives, direktörer, shareholders and other members in February.

It is worth noting that earlier this year there have been media reports that most of the Korean executives of HANSSEM stationed in China have been withdrawn one after another in late 2018 och tidigt 2019. Some of the Chinese employees of Chinese origin are looking for their next homes, and some have even already found their next homes. They are only awaiting the arrival of significant redundancy compensation.

Den tidigare tillkännagivna affären för IMM att förvärva en 30.21% insatser och ledningsrättigheter enligt uppgift är värda 1.5 biljoner vunna (RMB 8.3 miljard).

IMM kommer att granska Lotte’s och LX Hausys’ investment and identify a partner as early as mid-September. För närvarande, Lotte har officiellt meddelat att det är det “överväger deltagande” och LX Hausys har meddelat att de kommer att investera 300 billion KRW as a strategic investment. Following the completion of the acquisition of HANSSEM, IMM förväntar sig att utveckla den till den största operatören på hemmamarknaden online och offline.