KIC, PE firm WWG to invest $450 mn in equipment maker Duravant

Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), the South Korean sovereign wealth fund, and private equity firm White Whale Group (WWG) are slated to jointly invest $450 million in the US-based engineered equipment company Duravant LLC, sources said on May 26.

KIC and WWG are in the final stage of injecting $150 million and $300 million, respectively, in Duravant. The deal will be made via a continuation fund that global PE firm Warburg Pincus LLC is creating, according to sources. 

Warburg acquired Duravant in 2017 from US middle-market PE firm Odyssey Investment Partners LLC. Since then, Duravant’s corporate value has jumped from around 1.5 trillion won to 6.5 trillion won in five years, The Korea Economic Daily understood. Warburg has decided to hold on to Duravant with some new limited partners through the fund.  

Last October, global PE giant The Carlyle Group acquired around a 40% stake in Duravant, becoming one of the two largest shareholders with Warburg. Warburg’s shareholding rate declined from 60% to 40% by selling part of its stake to Carlyle. The sale of Duravant stake to Carlyle valued the engineered equipment company at around $5 billion, Bloomberg reported at the time. Some minority stakeholders include Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and state-run Temasek Holdings, The Korea Economic Daily understood.

Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, Duravant provides manufacturing, sales and service facilities to the food processing, packaging and material handling sectors in North America, Europe and Asia. Since Warburg bought the company, Duravant has acquired around 10 firms in the food processing, packaging and equipment manufacturing industries.

Based in Seoul, WWG was founded in 2017 by former executives and employees of KIC. Chairman Chin Young-wook was the sovereign wealth fund’s former chief executive between 2008 and 2011, and CEO Park Je-yeong served as chief operating officer at KIC between 2005 and 2011. The firm has 16 assets in its portfolios, including Harbourside Office in Bristol, England, which it acquired for 140 billion won in November 2017.

Warburg, managing more than $80 billion in assets, has grown its presence in Korea by partnering with local institutional investors. In the third quarter of 2021, National Pension Service (NPS) of Korea hired the New York-based PE firm for real estate management.

In March of the last year, Korea’s Samsung Securities Co. participated in Warburg’s first Asian real estate-focused fund reaching $1.5 billion, according to a local report. In 2017, a consortium of Korean pension and retirement funds invested 85 billion won in debts in Warburg-backed hotel Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi.   

Write to Chae-Yeon Kim at why29@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.