[Exclusive] Korea's Leading IoT Company 'Bluebird' Shifts to Public Sale

Major Shareholder H PE Plans to Sell 60.54% Stake
Public Sale Process to Proceed in August... Last Year's Revenue 80.5 Billion KRW, Operating Profit 6.1 Billion KRW

Bluebird, a specialized company in industrial mobile Internet of Things (IoT) total solutions, is set to be publicly sold. According to the investment banking (IB) industry, Bluebird plans to proceed with the public sale process in August. Bluebird was put on the market earlier this year in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market. After searching for a sole buyer, it recently shifted to a public sale. The major shareholders of Bluebird are HR Private Equity (HR PE) with 60.54%, CEO Lee Jang-won with 35.97%, and other shareholders holding the remaining 3.49%. HR PE is selling its 60.54% stake.

Founded in 1996, Bluebird is a global leader in the automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) integrated solutions field. It has over 3,000 clients in more than 120 countries.

AIDC is a term that encompasses technologies that automatically obtain data through various recognition methods and store it digitally in systems. Recognition methods include smart cards, barcodes, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and biometric recognition. While barcodes have been the most widely used, the market is shifting towards RFID and biometric recognition. Currently, AIDC is widely used in logistics, distribution, and retail sectors, and its usage is gradually expanding to general manufacturing and healthcare sectors (global clinical).

Bluebird provides both AIDC hardware and software. It has sales subsidiaries in the United States, Spain, and Germany, and a research and development (R&D) center in India. An IB industry official stated, "Compared to major competitors, the company has price competitiveness and has a large portfolio of intellectual property rights, with R&D personnel accounting for about 50% of the total employees."

Last year, Bluebird's sales and operating profit were recorded at 80.5 billion KRW and 6.1 billion KRW, respectively. Sales increased by more than 8% compared to the previous year, and operating profit grew by about 38%.

Bluebird is a portfolio company that HR PE acquired when it was spun off from Medici Investment. Medici Investment invested in 2015. Previously, in 2012, H&Q invested approximately 45 billion KRW in Bluebird, and three years later, Medici Investment participated in a paid-in capital increase along with acquiring existing shares of Bluebird, investing 60 billion KRW. HR PE started anew early last year when Medici Investment's PE division was spun off.

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