This article was published on May 7, 2025, at 2:38 p.m. on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove site.
Korean domestic private equity fund (PEF) operator Nikkei Private Equity (hereinafter referred to as Nikkei PE) is pursuing the acquisition of a health supplement plastic container manufacturer.
According to the investment bank (IB) industry on the 7th, Nikkei PE has recently decided to acquire management rights of the plastic container manufacturer LKS and plans to sign a stock purchase agreement (SPA) as early as this month.
The target for acquisition is about 67% of the management rights equity held by special related parties, including the founder of LKS, Shin Chang-hyun (38.62% equity), with the acquisition price set at around 30 billion won.
LKS is a plastic container manufacturer established in 2013, specializing in containers for health supplements such as multivitamins, recording sales of 29.2 billion won and an operating profit of 4.9 billion won last year.
Nikkei PE chose to enter the container industry, which is a downstream sector of health supplements, believing that health supplements will achieve similar growth to the domestic cosmetics industry, often referred to as K-beauty.
This is because the health supplement market is diversifying into segments such as vitamins and collagen, similar to the foundational and color lines of the K-beauty market.
LKS, a rising star in the vitamin market, is focused on manufacturing multivitamin containers and is regarded as a key partner for contract manufacturers (OEM) such as Novarex in the health supplement sector.
Given the circumstances, it is reported that recruitment of investors for the LKS acquisition project fund was smooth, despite Nikkei PE being a new private equity established by Seo Ju-won, a former representative from IBK Capital, last November.
An industry insider in the PE sector noted, "Many investors believe that health supplement container manufacturers will achieve growth similar to that of cosmetics container manufacturers like Pumtech Korea."
Meanwhile, Pumtech Korea, a K-beauty plastic container manufacturer, went public in 2019 with a valuation of 360 billion won and has recently seen its market capitalization rise to about 700 billion won, buoyed by the popularity of K-beauty.