November 28, 2024

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SK Square Chief Executive Officer Park Jung-ho speaks at a press conference on the sidelines of this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on Tuesday. (Yonhap)

SK Square Vice Chairman and CEO Park Jung-ho on Tuesday showed high expectations about joint management with Sweden’s EQT Infrastructure to nurture SK Shieldus into a global security firm.

In a press conference held on the sidelines of this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Park -- who also doubles as SK hynix CEO -- revealed that EQT Infrastructure will purchase a total 68 percent stake to become the top shareholder of the Korean Security firm. EQT Infrastructure is an affiliate of EQT Partners, a private equity fund operated by Sweden’s largest conglomerate.

According to SK Square, currently the top shareholder for SK Shieldus with a 63.13 percent stake, EQT Infrastructure will purchase 36.9 percent stake -- combining part of SK Square's shares and all owned by a consortium led by Macquarie Korea Asset Management -- for 2 trillion won ($1.5 billion). The Swedish company will buy the rest of the stake with newly issued stocks. SK Square is an investment arm of South Korea’s No. 2 conglomerate SK Group.

From the sell-off, SK Square is to receive about 864.6 billion won, Park said. Remaining as the second-largest shareholder after the deal with 32 percent, worth 1 trillion won, the company will jointly operate SK Shieldus with EQT Infrastructure upon the Swedish company’s request, the CEO added.

“From the deal, SK Shieldus has been valued at 5 trillion won (including debt), and this is nearly double the amount when (SK Telecom) first acquired the company at 3 trillion won,” Park said.

Park also dispelled concerns over employee restructuring following the acquisition and even promised bonuses.

"I absolutely guarantee employment of SK Shieldus staff. We do not take investment, or work with a stakeholder if it means shaking the employment system. (The employees) may look forward to receiving bonuses,” Park said.

"Amid a weak merger and acquisition market situation, (the acquisition deal with EQT) shows we gained trust from foreign stakeholders on Korean capital and the security market," Park said.

EQT would pay the royalty to use the brand, SK Shieldus, SK said.

SK Square said it will be utilizing the new stocks to be issued, worth 200 billion won, for new SK Shieldus business projects such as artificial intelligence-based security services and opening unmanned stores.

The Korean investment firm plans to conclude all processes to gain approval from the government for the merger before the fourth quarter of this year, the company said.

SK Shieldus was established in 2021 after SK Infosec, an information security subsidiary of SK Group, merged with ADT Caps, which was a subsidiary of SK Telecom at the time. The company came about to become an affiliate of SK Square in 2021, when SK Telecom created a spinoff.

SK Telecom and a consortium led by Macquarie Korea Asset Management acquired ADT Caps in 2018, for 2.97 trillion won, including a net debt of 1.7 trillion won.

SK Shieldus had previously sought to go public in May last year, but the plans were reportedly scrapped as it started talks with EQT Partners on the possibility of joint management in November.

As the CEO of SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, Park also relayed a positive outlook for the chip market.

“As the competition in the AI market heats up, demands for high-capacity DRAM that has a competitive edge data centers would likely recover faster than NAND flash,” Park said.

“While achieving immediate earnings is important, I believe the value of SK hynix will go up if we show our confidence on our growth.”

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)