VIG-owned Samyang targets up to $74m in Korea IPO

The company will sell four million shares – all held by VIG – at KRW16,700-20,600 apiece, according to a prospectus. The private equity firm’s interest in Samyang will fall from 100% to 50%. If the offering is priced at the top end of the indicative range, Samyang would be worth KRW206 billion.

VIG acquired the company in August 2013, paying KRW68 billion, including KRW25 billion in debt. The seller had run into financial difficulty in his other businesses and so the private equity firm suggested that Samyang be carved out and the proceeds used to pay off creditors and pay out minority shareholders. It also put forward an expedited timeframe for achieving this, and duly won exclusivity.

Founded in 1972, Samyang started out producing interchangeable lenses for film cameras and later diversified into manufacturing lenses for CCTV cameras. When that area also became challenging, Samyang should have refocused its efforts on interchangeable lenses, capitalizing on how technological improvements were driving demand for DSLR cameras. It didn’t take full advantage of the opportunity.

As recently as 2011, CCTV lenses accounted for the bulk of Samyang’s revenue, even though interchangeable lenses were generating most of the EBITDA. VIG quickly wound down the CCTV lens business and concentrated fully on interchangeable lenses. Changes were made to management, distribution networks, and product lines, with Samyang introducing its first auto-focus lenses in 2016.

In 2014, revenue came to KRW51.6 billion and the split was 49% traditional camera lenses, 37% video lenses, and 9.7% other products, including CCTV. Two years on, the CCTV business had more or less disappeared but revenue had grown to KRW62.7 billion, with traditional camera lenses contributing 60% and video lenses about 40%.

Samyang reported a net profit of KRW15.9 billion in 2016, up from KRW13.1 billion in 2015 and KRW12.5 billion the year before that.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Technology
• Industrials
• IPO
• South Korea
• VIG Partners
• manufacturing
• Exit