Retail News CRM

Tag: Kim’s Club

  • E-Land Group sells clothing brand to China

    E-Land Group sells clothing brand to China

    To raise funds to cut debt, South Korean apparel retailer E-Land Group is selling a youth clothing brand to China’s V-Grass Fashion Co for nearly US$900 million.

    South Korea’s largest apparel retailer, E-Land Group says it expects to close the sale of its Teenie Weenie business for around 1 trillion won by year-end. It says the sale will help cut its debt-to-capital ratio by about a third.

    Led by the success of cosmetics firms, demand in China is surging for Korean products, as well as Korean TV dramas and K-pop music.

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    Teenie Weenie has the strength of both being a Korean firm with a Chinese partner, says VP Lee Gyu-Jin. Launched in China in 2004, it already has a strong profile for its casual clothing. It has 1400 department store and other outlets in China with annual revenue of 420 billion won.

    V-Grass is a Shanghai-listed women’s apparel company with a market value of about $685
    million and is little known outside China. Earlier this year it said it planned to raise up to 1.35 billion yuan ($202 million) in a private share placement “to fund projects”.

    Earlier, E-Land Group dropped a plan to sell its Kim’s Club hypermarket chain to US private equity fund KKR, citing differences over price.

  • US buyer for Korea’s Kim’s Club

    US buyer for Korea’s Kim’s Club

    A US private equity giant is the successful bidder for South Korean hypermarket chain Kim’s Club, part of the fashion and retail conglomerate E-Land Group.

    Named the preferred bidder for Kim’s Club, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) will now discuss with E-Land the acquisition of the right to run the 37 hypermarkets as well as the group’s logistics centres, according to Business Korea.

    KKR focuses on online-to-offline (O2O) retail business investment, and with its bid for Kim’s Club seeks to create synergy with its previous investment in the retail industry, both online and offline, says an E-Land spokesman.

    As Kim’s Club is located in E-Land Retail’s department stores and outlets as a food market, the two companies are expected to maintain the partnership. Moreover, KKR is continuing talks for a possible sale of the Gangnam branch of the New Core Department Store.

    E-Land and KKR plan to conduct due diligence and set the selling price before signing a final contract in early May. The sell-off of Kim’s Club is expected to be complete within the first half of the year.

    E-Land is seeking between 700 billion to one trillion won (US$598-$854 million) for the rights to the hypermarket chain, according to wire service Yonhap.

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