SK Group invests $340 mln in Masan subsidiary

By Dat Nguyen November 11, 2021 | 07:38 pm PT

A staff arranges goods at a VinMart (now WinMart) outlet operated by Masan Group. Photo courtesy of Masan Group

South Korea’s SK Group will buy a 4.9 percent stake in The CrownX for $345 million, while Masan Group will increase its stake by 0.1 percentage point.

It will be the first direct investment by SK in The CrownX, which is owned by WinCommerce, the operator of WinMart, and packaged food producer Masan.

In April this year SK Group had invested $410 to buy 16.26 percent of WinCommerce.

Masan will increase its holding in The Crownx to 85 percent after the deal.

The company aims to close out its fund raising round worth $200-300 million by the end of the year, and potentially increase its own stake in the near future.

It plans to shift its priority toward scaling up The CrownX’s ‘mini-mall’ concept, a combination of WinMart+ (grocery), Phuc Long Kiosk (coffee and tea), pharmacy, Techcombank, and a transaction point for Mobicast (a startup mobile virtual network operator).

It also wants to increase online grocery sales to more than 5 percent of total revenues and 50,000 orders a day.

"SK’s investment is a validation that our mini-mall concept, a winning nationwide model, will bring more value to consumers’ daily lives," Masan CEO Danny Le said.

SK Group is one of the largest conglomerates in South Korea with businesses across energy, chemicals, telecommunications, semiconductors, logistics, and services.