GS Acquires 'Botox No.1' Hugel... Allow the Conquest of the Bio World

GS Group's First Trillion-Won M&A Case
Chairman Heo Tae-soo Emphasizes Innovation Commitment
Signal for Portfolio Restructuring Including Eco-Friendly Businesses
Hugel Ranks No.1 in Domestic Medical Beauty Market Share

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] GS Group is entering the global medical bio market through the acquisition of Hugel, the No. 1 Botox company in Korea. The acquisition of Hugel is significant as it is GS Group's first trillion-won scale merger and acquisition (M&A) and demonstrates the innovation will of GS Chairman Huh Tae-soo (pictured). Until now, GS, which had been conservative in investment and new business ventures, has signaled a full-scale shift of its business and investment portfolio towards eco-friendly directions.

According to GS Group on the 25th, the GS consortium signed a stock purchase agreement (SPA) to acquire 42.9% of Hugel shares held by Bain Capital. The acquisition amount is approximately 1.7 trillion won, with GS financing half of the acquisition funds.

The acquisition of Hugel is known to have been directly led by Chairman Huh. Since his inauguration as group chairman last year, he has emphasized "innovation" as a management focus and has been seeking new business ventures. At the New Year's gathering earlier this year, he also pointed to the bio business as a new business with infinite potential alongside ESG (environmental, social, and governance) management, stating, "We will devote ourselves to discovering new businesses through strengthening digital capabilities and eco-friendly management."

After signing the Hugel acquisition contract, Chairman Huh stated, "Hugel has verified products and global competitiveness, so continuous growth is expected in the future," and explained the investment background by saying, "We will further expand future new businesses through diversification of GS Group's bio business."

Since 2016, Hugel has held the No. 1 market share in the domestic botulinum toxin formulation market. It also has the strength of possessing product lines such as botulinum toxin and hyaluronic acid fillers, whose efficacy has been verified through more than 10 years of clinical trials. Being the industry leader in the highly competitive Korean medical beauty market demonstrates sufficient competitiveness in the global market as well.

In particular, in October last year, Hugel became the first domestic botulinum toxin formulation company to receive sales approval for its botulinum toxin formulation "Retivo" (export name) from the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). This signifies the possibility of entering the closed Chinese medical bio market. GS Group expects Hugel's products to rapidly expand their market share in the rapidly growing global medical aesthetic market.

A GS Group official explained, "After completing the acquisition of Hugel, we will strengthen the profitability of the medical bio business by expanding exports to the global market," and added, "We will pursue synergy between our existing industrial bio business and Hugel, and diversify our business into eco-friendly green bio and other areas."