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| SK Square Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho speaks during a press conference held at the Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 28. Courtesy of SK Square |
By Kim Jae-heun
SK Square, the investment arm of SK Telecom, sold a portion of its stake and management rights in SK Shieldus, Korea's second-largest security service provider, to EQT Partners, a private equity fund (PEF) operated by Sweden's largest conglomerate, the Wallenberg Group, for 864.6 billion won, the Korean company said Wednesday.
Remaining as the second-largest shareholder with a 32-percent stake, SK Square seeks to grow SK Shieldus into a "global comprehensive security service firm" through joint management with the Swedish PEF, its top executive said.
"The acquisition of SK Shieldus' stake by EQT Infrastructure under EQT Partners, a Wallenberg Group investment company, was unanimously approved," SK Square Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho said during a press conference held at the Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday (local time).
In 2018, SK Telecom and Macquarie acquired a 100-percent stake in ADT Caps, the predecessor of SK Shieldus, for 1.27 trillion won. SK Telecom spent about 700 billion won for the acquisition. In November 2021, SK Telecom launched the investment arm, SK Square, by spinning off its non-telecom businesses.
EQT Partners will acquire part of SK Square's stake and the entire stake held by Macquarie for about 2 trillion won ($1.5 billion) and obtain additional new shares to become the largest shareholder of SK Shieldus with a 68 percent stake.
SK Square's remaining 32 percent stake in SK Shieldus is worth 1 trillion won. SK Shieldus was valued at more than 5 trillion won. This is the largest investment the company made since it was founded.
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