Macquarie Asset Management, a private equity firm, has sold about 7% of its stake in LG CNS Co., the IT services unit of South Korea’s LG Group, through a block sale worth around 446 billion won ($310 million) at a 9% discount to the previous day’s closing price.
According to investment banking sources on Tuesday, Crystal Korea, a special-purpose vehicle established by Macquarie to invest in LG CNS, sold about 7.4 million shares, or 7% of its entire stake, in an after-hours block trade following a book-building process on Monday. The shares were priced at 60,242 won each, compared with Monday’s closing price of 66,200 won, representing a 9.0% discount.
The latest sale reduces Crystal Korea’s holding in LG CNS to 8.93% from 15.93%. The transaction follows a previous block deal in August, when Macquarie sold a 5.6% stake for 347.8 billion won, after securing 600 billion won through a secondary share offering during LG CNS’s initial public listing.
Macquarie originally purchased a 35% stake in LG CNS, equivalent to 30.5 million shares, from LG Corp. in April 2020 for about 1.02 trillion won. Including dividends and refinancing proceeds, the firm has already recouped its original investment, with the latest 446 billion won sale representing additional profit.
The block deal was conducted as a club deal, with multiple foreign institutional investors jointly acquiring the shares. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America served as joint bookrunners for the transaction.
Macquarie is expected to offload its remaining 6.93% stake after the 90-day lock-up period expires.
