MBK acquires Medit digital dental solution firm in a $2B deal

MBK Partners finally signed the deal for the acquisition of Medit Corp., a South Korean dental scanner manufacturer and solutions company. The agreement is valued at $2 billion.

This will be MBK Partners’ first massive deal in the country this year after failing to close its previous bids for Kakao Mobility and MegastudyEdu Co. Ltd., a Korean firm that offers online and offline educational programs to middle and high school students.

According to The Korea Times, the private equity fund company bought Medit Corp., and the signing of the deal was announced on Thursday, Dec. 29. Under the contract, the PEF firm will acquire a 99.5% stake in the dental solutions provider company. The stake to be acquired was owned by Unison Capital, Medit’s largest shareholder.

Prior to the recent signing of the contracts, the negotiations were carried out about a month after MBK Partners was formally chosen as the preferred bidder. It has outbid some of the well-known PEF companies and investment firms, including The Blackstone Group, KKR Co. Inc., and Carlyle Group Inc.

After the sale is completed, Medit’s founder, Jang Min Ho, and other executives will maintain their link to the company as joint investors with MBK Partners. They have agreed to reinvest a large amount in the firm. In any case, the deal is expected to close within the first quarter of 2023.

"We have shared a common view of developing Medit into a globally renowned digital dental platform operator by building an ecosystem encompassing not just dental scanners, but medical teams, dealerships, solutions, and devices," MBK Partners stated. "We are pleased to partner with Medit."

Medit Corp. is a leading dental solutions provider in the world. In fact, it secured a market share of 22% in 2020, and this year, it has even increased to 24%.

Meanwhile, The Korea Economic Daily mentioned that the company’s main product offerings, such as the i500 and i700 dental scanners, are competitive because these have the ability to shape the tooth structure in less than a minute. Other makers of a similar device cannot achieve this at this time frame as they usually take hours, and this is one of Medit’s advantages over its rivals.

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