Private equity management firm VIG Partners announced in a press release on the 29th that it has signed a stock purchase agreement to sell its management equity stake in Fried Life to Woongjin Group through VIG Fund No. 3 and VIG Fund No. 4.
VIG expects to record total cash recovery exceeding 1 trillion won through this transaction and the dividends paid over the last year. Once the transaction scheduled for the first half of this year is finalized, VIG will have recovered more than four times its invested principal by adding the amounts from the previous refinancing and minority equity sales.
This sale is valued at approximately 700 billion won and marks the third investment recovery for Fund No. 3, established in 2016, as well as the first investment recovery for Fund No. 4, established in 2020, which is worth about 1 trillion won. With this sale as a starting point, VIG plans to accelerate the investment recovery efforts for Funds No. 3 and No. 4.
VIG expects the demand for professional funeral services to continue increasing due to South Korea's aging population and trend toward nuclear families. Since establishing Good Life in 2016, it has acquired several mid-sized funeral service companies. After acquiring Fried Life in 2020, VIG merged four funeral service companies under its umbrella, creating the leading funeral service company in the country.
In 2020, Fried Life had received advance deposits of 1.3 trillion won and 1.4 million members, and it has now grown nearly twice, with advance deposits of 2.6 trillion won and 2.3 million members. In the process, its revenue also increased from 73.5 billion won in 2020 to 276.7 billion won in 2024, and it recorded an operating profit of 98.5 billion won after experiencing operating losses during the same period.