seoul korea samyang group will become the largest shareholder with a 51percent stake in a new beverage packaging company to be created by a merger between samyang packaging and the pet bottle business unit of hyosung group. meanwhile, sc private equity, which had signed an agreement last month to take over hyosung&39s packaging business unit, will remain as the second largest shareholder. on november 27, news that samyang group and sc private equity had agreed to terms including this was reported. analysts commented this is a new type of merger technique to take over the controlling stake of a rival company by means of a private equity fund firm. a person close to the deal said, "normally the merged firm doesn&39t like to see a rival firm in a bidding to find a new owner as it may result in trade secret breaches. in the case of the hyosung packaging unit merger, the private equity fund&39s deal played a middleman&39s role perfectly." indeed, those of hyosung group responsible for the deal were not aware that samyang group was behind all along until they signed the transaction to hand over the unit to sc private equity. the merger deal is scheduled to be finalized by the end of the first half next year. hyosung&39s pet bottle business unit is no. 1 in the industry in terms of market share. the purchase price offered by sc private equity was 415 billion won. this is about four times higher than the net assets of samyang packaging 94.5 billion won, a no. 3 operator in the business. its sales revenue is about three times more than that of samyang. 
