IMM Private Equity and five other South Korean private equity firms are set to invest a total of 800 billion won ($600 million) in Goodai Global Inc., a Korean beauty startup raising capital to acquire two indie Korean cosmetics brands for a combined 750 billion won.
IMM PE is conducting due diligence on Goodai before purchasing 280 billion won worth of convertible bonds (CBs), according to investment banking sources on Friday. They deal is expected to close by the end of August.
JKL Partners and Premier Partners each are likely to inject 120 billion won into the Korean cosmetics company through CBs. The remainder will be provided by Kiwoom Private Equity and Company K Partners, a venture capital firm.
Founded in 2016, Goodai specializes in marketing and distributing Korean beauty products.
Benchmarking L’Oréal SA’s growth strategy, it has been aggressively expanding since 2019 through a series of acquisitions of indie Korean cosmetics brands across skincare, color makeup and manufacturing.
The brands it has already acquired include Beauty of Joseon, TIRTIR, House of Hur and Laka Cosmetics, as well as Craver Corporation, a Korean beauty wholesale and marketing advisory firm.
Goodai is now nearing a deal to acquire Seorin Company, the cosmetics company behind Round Lab’s popular Dokdo Toner, for about 600 billion won.
It is also poised to take over Skinfood, a first-generation indie Korean cosmetics brand in partnership with Seoul-based The Hahm Partners.
Following the M&As, Goodai’ earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is forecast to more than treble to 450 billion won in 2025, compared to 130 billion won the year before.
The latest fundraising estimated Goodai’s enterprise value at 4 trillion won, or nine times its forward EBITDA.
Its M&A-driven strategy has drawn comparisons to L’Oréal, which built its global cosmetics empire through aggressive dealmaking.
Goodai has partnered with private equity investors to fund its acquisitions.
By Eun-Kyung Song
norae@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.
