이 기사는 2021년 08월 19일 08시02분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

GS Retail is using its proceeds from a merger with GS Homeshopping to make large-scale mergers and acquisitions deals. It has recently acquired South Korea’s second-largest food delivery platform Yogiyo from Germany’s Delivery Hero.

A consortium led by GS Retail has agreed to acquire Yogiyo for 800 billion won ($684 million), of which GS Retail will invest 240 billion won to take a 30% stake in the delivery platform. It will also inject additional 60 billion won into Delivery Hero Korea, an operator of Yogiyo.

GS Retail will participate in the Yogiyo management as a strategic investor. It aims to strengthen its position in the ecommerce market by integrating its 16,000 offline shops and 60 distribution centers with Yogiyo's online delivery business.

The latest deal follows GS Retail's acquisition earlier this year of a 19.51% stake in Mesh Korea, an operator of quick delivery service provider Vroong, to become its second-largest shareholder.

It is better for GS Retail to have control of Yogiyo in order to boost its competitiveness in the ecommerce market. The company can participate in Yogiyo's management as a strategic investor, but it needs to become the largest shareholder by acquiring an additional stake to build a stronger partnership.

The company has ample funds to acquire an additional stake as its total equity increased from 2.32 trillion won ($1.98 billion) at the end of 2020 to 3.57 trillion won after the merger with GS Homeshopping.

Analysts predict that GS Retail is unlikely to be financially burdened by the acquisition cost of 300 billion won as it had 250 billion won in cash reserves at the end of March with a debt-to-equity ratio of 173%.

“GS Retail is highly likely to secure management rights of Yogiyo by taking over an additional stake in Yogiyo in the future,” said an industry source. “By doing so, the company will create synergies between online and offline channels and strengthen its platform capability.”

“Although there is no specific plan to purchase additional shares yet, we, as a strategic investor, are focusing on establishing a strategy to maximize synergy with existing offline stores,” said an official at GS Retail. (Reporting by Seon-ho Kim)