KTH and KT M-House Merger... Leap to a Digital Commerce Specialist Company

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] KTH and KT M-House are advancing as KT Group's specialized digital commerce company through a merger.

On the 30th, both KTH and KT M-House held board meetings and resolved to merge. The surviving entity after the merger will be KTH, with a merger ratio of approximately 1 to 13.3. For each share of KT M-House, 13.3 new shares of KTH will be allocated. After regulatory corporate merger reviews and a shareholders' meeting around May next year, the merger is planned to be completed by July 2021.

Once this merger is finalized, the commerce business capabilities of KTH, a leading T-commerce operator, and KT M-House, which has strengths in mobile coupons, will combine to respond more proactively to the changing market competition environment. Additionally, it plans to contribute to enhancing corporate value through KT Group's ICT capabilities such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud.

The merged company plans to expand distribution channels and product competitiveness based on the ICT infrastructure, technological capabilities, and solution businesses held by both companies. A KT official stated, "We will create customer value through the distribution infrastructure that KTH possesses, including product procurement, marketing, delivery, and management, as well as KT M-House's 30,000 corporate clients and 90,000 offline franchise stores."

Lee Pil-jae, CEO of KTH, said, “The two companies, which have operated businesses centered on TV shopping and mobile coupons, share the common denominator of having strengthened commerce competitiveness based on ICT, and will grow into a massive digital commerce platform to realize customer value. Through this merger, we will thoroughly prepare for the era of digital transformation and accelerate growth by seeking new opportunities.” Moon Jung-yong, CEO of KT M-House, said, “This merger will be an opportunity not to settle as the leading player in the mobile coupon market but to continuously implement new customer-centric commerce businesses and realize a bigger dream of changing the commerce market landscape.”