Grace Leads Attraction of Strategic Overseas Investors

Grace Co., Ltd. (formerly Grace International) has attracted strategic investment from SKS Capital, a private equity fund (SKS TRANSFORMATION FUND I (RESURGO) L.P) headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region, which has a deep understanding of the global consumer goods market and has invested in various distribution channels, in order to expand its overseas market channels and maximize consumer needs.

Grace, which has recorded annual sales growth of over 10%, is a one-stop solution H&B company that handles and exclusively supplies more than 50 global H&B brands, distributing them through domestic and international online channels and over 50,000 offline stores. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Grace has been leading the business of directly managing customer data and selling domestic brands through various major overseas distribution channels via B2B or D2C by leveraging its global network. It also has the capability to develop private brand (PB) products using customer data obtained from D2C sales in 60 countries worldwide and export them globally, attracting interest from numerous domestic and international investors.

According to Grace, SKS Capital continues to invest in the H&B business based on family office funds that have built the world’s largest beauty packaging business over three generations. SKS Capital has diverse investment experience in platforms such as Bluemoon, Xiaomi, and Sendo Tech, and its recently invested portfolio includes several large Southeast Asian distributors that can be utilized as global sales networks. This investment can create synergy with the strong content IP businesses of Com2uS and Wizwick Group, which recently formed strategic partnerships with Grace. In particular, it is explained that the investment can lead to advanced product and service sales by segmenting and refining Hallyu content, which has become a global cultural trend.

Through its overseas direct-to-consumer (D2C) mall ‘Coriel,’ Grace is introducing K-BEAUTY to a total of 32 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, and Southeast Asia. The company is accelerating its overseas direct purchase business, showing significant growth mainly in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and France. With this overseas investment, Grace plans to expand into the Southeast Asian and Japanese markets in 2023.

A Grace representative stated, “Grace already secures numerous domestic and international global top brands trusted by customers, resulting in solid sales growth. We are expanding beyond our previous strength in H&B products to strengthen our lineup of health functional foods and rapidly growing sectors such as infant and inner beauty products. Especially, Grace has been operating its brands stably even amid unpredictable market conditions and the pandemic environment, making it a brand aggregator capable of continuous growth regardless of trends, purchasing patterns, or sales channel fluctuations. Over the past decade, we have achieved continuous sales growth and stable profits annually. This overseas investment will serve as a cornerstone for the company’s global expansion.”

Meanwhile, Grace has established itself as Asia’s leading H&B company based on a portfolio of over 40 global top brands ranging from beauty care such as Body Fantasies and Mustela to healthcare brands like BioGaia and BioLab, as well as daily necessities like Briochin. By expanding world-renowned health functional brands such as DeDrops, Aptai, and Pokapil, Grace is broadening its scope as a pioneer in the domestic and international D2C H&B business through the expansion of its CBT (Cross Border Trading) operations.