Unitas Capital receives bids for Korean convenience store Buy The Way

Unitas acquired the South Korean convenience store chain in July 2006 for about $200m.

It was expected that Japan's fifth-largest convenience store chain Ministop and Lotte Group, South Korea's retail industry leader, would separately bid for Buy The Way. Private equity funds are also believed to have put in bids.

Buy The Way is reportedly Korea’s fourth largest convenience store chain, with around 1,400 retail premises.

Yesterday, news of Affinity Equity Partners’ sale of South Korean cosmetics company THEFACESHOP to LG Household for KRW420bn ($364.2m) broke.

In December 2008, Unitas closed its third fund, Asia Opportunity Fund III, on $1.2bn, failing to meet its $2.5bn target as limited partners found themselves stuck for cash and unwilling to commit to new fundraisings. The firm then changed its name from CCMP Capital Asia in January of this year.

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