What Kind of Company Is Zinus, Which Hyundai Department Store Has 'Bet the Highest Price' On?

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] Interest in Zinus is growing as Hyundai Department Store Group makes its largest investment since its founding to acquire the furniture and mattress company Zinus.

On the 22nd, Hyundai Department Store Group announced that it would acquire 30% of the shares (including management rights) held by Zinus founder Chairman Yoonjae Lee and others for 774.7 billion KRW. They also signed a contract to subscribe to new shares worth 120 billion KRW to establish Zinus's third factory in Indonesia and strengthen its financial structure.

Zinus is a mattress and bedding furniture manufacturer established in 1979. Until the early 2000s, camping products such as tents were its main products. At one point, it held a 35% share of the global tent market. However, after the 1997 IMF financial crisis, its business conditions rapidly deteriorated, and it experienced the pain of being delisted from the KOSPI in 2005.

Since then, Zinus shifted its main business to mattresses and related products. It gained fame by pioneering the world's first small box packaging for mattresses, standing out in the online mattress market. In 2014, it entered the US e-commerce giant Amazon and became the number one in the US online mattress market. It is currently known to hold more than a 30% market share in the US market.

Zinus started domestic sales in 2018 and established a sales corporation in Australia. In 2019, it re-entered the KOSPI while gradually expanding its sales channels to Japan, and in 2020 to Singapore. At the end of 2020, it established a sales corporation in Vietnam and a UK sales corporation overseeing sales in Europe (EU).

Zinus, which was on a growth trajectory, experienced another setback due to logistics disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Zinus's operating profit was 103.9 billion KRW in 2019 before COVID-19, but it decreased to 86.7 billion KRW in 2020 and 74.3 billion KRW in 2021. The operating profit margin was 12.71% in 2019 but was halved to 6.61% in 2021.

Last year, Zinus also pursued negotiations to sell 40% of its shares (including a management premium), including 35.31% held by SK Networks and Chairman Yoonjae Lee, for 1.1 trillion KRW. However, the deal did not materialize, and eventually, it came under the umbrella of Hyundai Department Store Group.

A Zinus official said, "Since Chairman Yoonjae Lee's family had not participated in the company's management until now, this investment attracted has become an opportunity to clearly organize the uncertain future governance structure," adding, "It will be an opportunity to create synergy with Hyundai Department Store Group's distribution and living/interior affiliates and upgrade Zinus's global sales network and business competitiveness."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.