Starbucks to Sell South Korean Unit to GIC, E-Mart
July 27 2021 - 2:22AM
Dow Jones News
By Kwanwoo Jun
U.S. coffee chain Starbucks Corp. said it will sell its entire
50% stake in its South Korean unit to Singapore's sovereign wealth
fund GIC Pte. Ltd. and local partner E-Mart Inc.
GIC will acquire 32.5% of Starbucks Coffee Korea and E-Mart will
take the remaining 17.5% on top of its existing 50% stake,
Starbucks said in a statement.
Starbucks said it expects to complete the stake sales over the
next 90 days, without elaborating on divestment terms.
E-Mart in a separate regulatory filing Tuesday confirmed its
planned purchase of 700,000 shares of Starbucks Coffee Korea for
474 billion won ($411.2 million) to secure a total of 67.5% in the
venture and cement its managerial rights.
South Korean media recently reported that GIC had made a roughly
KRW800 billion investment offer and proposed that Starbucks Coffee
Korea should go public in the future.
Starbucks has partnered with E-Mart, an affiliate of South
Korean retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group, to operate the joint
venture in South Korea since 1999.
Starbucks Coffee Korea has since grown to operate more than
1,500 stores across 78 cities in South Korea, the fifth-largest
market for the global coffee chain.
Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 27, 2021 02:12 ET (06:12 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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