Mirae Asset Daewoo Securities Co. together with Korean private equity fund (PEF) IMM Investment and several wealthy individuals have invested a total of 100 billion won ($90.8 million) in Celltrion GSC, an unlisted distributor of cosmetics produced by Celltrion Inc., according to sources on Friday.

Under a contract, Celltrion GSC sold convertible bonds worth 100 billion won to the investors. IMM Investment raised 60 billion won from its PEFs and Mirae Asset Daewoo chipped in 20 billion won. The remaining 20 billion won was from affluent retail investors.

Mirae Asset Daewoo Securities’ investment in Celltrion GSC was made after its parent company Mirae Asset Financial Group Chairman Park Hyeon-joo in June revealed the group’s plan to invest total 10 trillion won in startups in biopharmaceutical and healthcare sectors for the next 10 years as part of efforts to take the lead in fostering promising growth engines.

Celltrion GSC held 71.01 percent by Celltrion chairman Seo Jung-jin was founded in 2000 for wholesale and retail business for pharmaceuticals. The unlisted company will use the proceeds to expand cosmetics business of Celltrion Skin Cure, its wholly-owned subsidiary and formally Han Skin that was acquired by Celltrion GSC for 28.6 billion won in 2013.

Korean biopharmaceutical company Celltrion aims to develop Celltrion Skin Cure as a brand dedicated to manufacturing cosmeceutical products to leverage the synergy between them. Cosmeceuticals are cosmetic products that contain active ingredients that are known to be beneficial to humans such as vitamins, peptides or botanical and marine extracts.

Seo has recently revealed the company’s plan to invest an additional 150 billion won in cosmetics business, while preparing to launch a cosmeceutical to reflect global market trends.

By Kang Doo-soon and Song Gwang-sup

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