Credit: Yonhap News.
On July 21, Seoul Bankruptcy Court 서울회생법원 permitted the rehabilitation of Homeplus 홈플러스, a major retailer that was ordered to be dissolved on July 3. After the dissolution order, the distressed retailer received an emergency loan of KRW 200b (USD 136m) from Meritz Financial 메리츠 금융, which convinced the court to resume the rehabilitation process and allow Homeplus to submit a reorganization plan by September 3.
Homeplus entered rehabilitation on March 4, 2025, a fall from grace for a retailer that was once considered a “Big 3” store along with Emart 이마트 and Lotte Mart 롯데마트 in South Korea, in a segment that is comparable to Target in the United States, plus a large grocery store. Founded in 1997 as a division of the Samsung Group 삼성그룹, the retailer enjoyed a peak as an affiliate of Tesco, the British retail giant, which bought Homeplus in 2011.
Since then, Homeplus has become a cautionary tale for private equity fund ownership. Following a major accounting scandal in 2015, Tesco sold Homeplus to MBK Partners, a South Korean private equity fund led by billionaire Michael B. Kim. Under MBK ownership, the quality of Homeplus stores noticeably declined as the new management implemented cost-cutting measures.
The retailer ultimately could not recover from the downturn from the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the company into court-supervised rehabilitation. Homeplus, which currently operates 67 outposts nationwide, says it would re-brand itself to be a South Korean version of Trader Joe’s, with an emphasis on marketing products under its own brand.
