이 기사는 2022년 03월 21일 08:08 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

Crescendo Equity Partners is actively making investments using its third blind-pool fund. It recently invested in Seojin System and will acquire a controlling stake in South Korea’s first generation biotech firm Medipost.

Crescendo and SkyLake Equity Partners will buy a controlling stake in Medipost for 160 billion won ($131 million), according to industry sources on Thursday. The two private equity (PE) firms will purchase 400,000 shares owned by Medipost chief executive Yang Yoon-sun for 20 billion won, with each injecting 70 billion to purchase convertible preferred shares and convertible bonds.

Crescendo and SkyLake will each invest 80 billion won in the company. Medipost aims to use the proceeds to enter the North American market.

Crescendo plans to fund the entire investment through its third blind-pool fund created in December 2021. The PE firm has believed it would be better to make an equity investment instead of using acquisition financing given the nature of Medipost’s business.

Medipost is the nation’s first generation biotech startup founded in 2000 by Yang. The company is leading the global stem cell therapeutics industry with the world’s first regulatory-approved allogeneic human Umbilical Cord Blood-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell (hUCB-MSC) product named Cartistem for patients with knee Osteoarthritis. Cartistem was released in 2012.

Crescendo targets mid-market companies with high growth prospects to grow them to global players.

The third fund’s investing activities are expected to be accelerated by the the latest investment in Medipost. The fund closed at the end of last year with commitments of 1.1 trillion won, the largest in the firm’s history.

The fund’s first investment was Seojin System. Crescendo decided to purchase Seojin System’s convertible bonds worth 110 billion won in mid-December, 2021. (Reporting by Gyoung-tae Kim)