이 기사는 2020년 03월 17일 08시00분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

South Korea’s BNW Investment, Industrial Bank of Korea Private Equity (IBK PE) and Korea Development Bank Private Equity (KDB PE) have invested 80 billion won in the country’s fan-out package provider Nepes Laweh.

BNW Investment, IBK PE and KDB PE have invested 80 billion won in Nepes Laweh, said investment banking (IB) industry sources on March 12. A stake in the company that three financial investors have acquired is reportedly less than 50 percent. The investors have purchased new shares worth 40 billion won and convertible bonds worth 40 billion won. They are expected to pay the acquisition cost on March 18.

IBK PE and BNW Investment have invested 30 billion won in the company via a blind-pool fund that both firms are jointly managing. BNW Investment has created a separate project fund to put in extra 20 billion won. KDB PE has invested 30 billion won in the company via its existing blind-pool fund.

Nepes Laweh is a subsidiary of Nepes, South Korea’s Kosdaq-listed semiconductor package company. Nepes offers turnkey solutions of IC back-end service for 8-inch and 12-inch wafers with reliable quality by implementing mainstream technology from wafer bumping, IC packaging and testing. The company’s portfolio of products covers wafer-level package (WLP), fan-out wafer-level package (FOWLP), fan-out wafer-level system in package (FOWL-SiP) and panel-level package (PLP). Nepes has separated its testing business unit last year to establish Nepes Ark.

In February 2020, Nepes has built an independent management system by spinning off its fan-out packaging business as a subsidiary Nepes Laweh. Fan-out packaging technology is one of the most high-tech solutions, which reduces physical stress on chips through sidewall protection structures.

Currently, only two companies in the country, Nepes Laweh and Samsung Electronics, can mass-produce this advanced package solution. Nepes Laweh will use the proceeds from the three financial investors to build a new manufacturing plant in Goesan, North Chungcheong Province.

BNW Investment and IBK PE also have put 60 billion won in Nepes Ark in July 2019 with Hana Financial Investment.

So far, BNW Investment and IBK PE have invested 10 billion won in Be My Car, six billion won in Soft Motions & Robotics, 10 billion won in Cresyn via the blind-pool fund. They also have SungEel Hitech (20 billion won), Nepes Ark (10 billion won) and Revu Corporation (12 billion won) as portfolio companies.

(By reporter Kim Hye-ran)