(Dec 13): Delivery Hero SE has agreed to buy control of Woowa Brothers Corp in a deal that values the operator of South Korea’s biggest food-delivery app at US$4 billion ($5.4 billion).
Delivery Hero will buy an 87% stake in Woowa from the existing investors and the remaining 13% held by Woowa’s senior management, including its founder Kim Bong-jin, will be converted into Delivery Hero shares, it said in a statement on Friday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. The German company will pay as much as 1.7 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in cash and up to 1.9 billion euros in shares.
The deal makes Kim the largest individual shareholder among the German firm’s leadership, and would rank among the biggest inbound investments into South Korea’s technology sector, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Woowa Brothers, founded in 2010, had 36 million food-delivery orders in South Korea last month, according to the company. It counts Hillhouse Capital and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its early investors and among the biggest shareholders besides the management team. Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia Capital invested at a later stage.
Delivery Hero, headquartered in Berlin, offers food delivery services in more than 400 cities globally with about 22,000 employees, according to its website.
As part of the deal, Delivery Hero will further expand its Asian business through setting up a joint venture with Woowa in Singapore. Woowa’s founder Kim will be in charge of managing the Asian business including South Korea, Vietnam and Hong Kong. Asia accounted for about 38% of its total orders and around 32% of its total revenue in the third quarter, according to its latest financial report.
