Shinsegae Group E-Mart signed a main contract to acquire baseball team… Acquired 100% stake in Wyverns

[한국금융신문 홍지인 기자] E-Mart, an affiliate of Shinsegae Group, has signed a main contract with SK Telecom for the acquisition of Wyverns.

E-Mart announced on the 23rd that it had signed a stock sales contract to acquire 100% of SK Telecom’s stake in the Wyverns club (1 million common stocks) for 100 billion won.

The sale of land and buildings owned by SK Telecom is expected to proceed as a separate contract in the future.

On the 26th of last month, Shinsegae Group announced that it is going to become a new member of KBO Korea’s professional baseball team by acquiring Incheon SK Wyverns professional baseball team. E-Mart acquires 100% of SK Wyverns’ stake, and the acquisition price is 135.58 billion won including land and buildings.

Industry Yongjin JeongcloseYongjin JeongCollect articles Vice Chairman of Shinsegae Group is expected to introduce a new business model that combines distribution and sports through the acquisition of the baseball team. In addition, there is an analysis that it will focus on attracting baseball fans to Shinsegae customers.

Vice-Chairman Chung has consistently expressed his will to create a complex experiential space that goes beyond a simple shopping space. Vice Chairman Jeong said at the opening ceremony of Hanam Shinsegae Starfield in 2016, “In the future, Starfield will not only be a shopping space, but will develop into a’complex cultural space’ like Everland and a baseball field, and a’theme park’.” The theme mark or baseball field was chosen as a competitor in the distribution industry.

Shinsegae Group said, “E-Mart has signed a main contract for the acquisition of SK Telecom and Wyverns Club,” and said, “Shinsegae Group has also completed the KBO membership application.”

Meanwhile, Shinsegae Group recruited Choo Shin-soo, who had enjoyed an era in the American Professional Baseball Major League (MLB), to the baseball team.

On the morning of the 23rd, Shinsegae Group officially announced that “We signed a contract with Shin-soo Choo for an annual salary of 2.7 billion won.” Choo Shin-soo’s annual salary of 2.7 billion won exceeds the KBO League’s highest annual salary of 2.5 billion won by Lee Dae-ho of the Lotte Giants.

Reporter Ji-in Hong [email protected]