Fashion ODM Pond Group buys K-beauty retailer Most

Pond Group, a South Korean original design manufacturing (ODM) clothing company, said on Monday it has acquired Most Inc., a domestic beauty product distributor, to make its foray into the cosmetics market and bolster its global sales network.Most Inc., founded in 2018, sells beauty products of some 30 Korean brands globally mainly through Costco Wholesale Corp., a big-box supermarket chain. It promotes them via social media influencers for viral marketing.Most Inc. is now in talks with a leading US cosmetics retailer to broaden its sales network beyond North America, Mexico, Taiwan and Australia into Japan, UK, Spain and France.Most Inc.’s founder and Chief Executive Chung Da-yeon will continue to lead the company after the deal, the value of which was not disclosed.Chung had worked as a demand forecast analyst at Apple Inc. for two years. She had then joined Amazon’s e-commerce team to launch its Korean operations, arranging individual sellers' expansion into global markets through the e-commerce marketplace.She had discovered a huge potential for Korean beauty products in the global market when she studied at INSEAD, a renowned business school, in the early 2010s. In a posting on Most's website, she said her fellow students from other countries were curious to know aout her "glowy skin" or "no makeup-make up look" which was a thing in South Korea in 2012.Most Inc. estimates its sales to shot up 180% to 35.0 billion won ($26 million) in 2024 and then climb 40% to 50 billion won in 2025, with exports accounting for more than 90%. Pond Group was spun off from Cowell Fashion Co. at the end of last year. Cowell belongs to Dae Myung Chemical Co. that has expanded into parcel delivery, fashion retail and airline industries through the acquisition of Rogen Transportation, Moda Outlet and Aero K Airlines Co. since the start of 2020.Pond Group designs and manufactures clothes under global brands such as Calvin Klein, Puma, Adidas, DKNY and Superdry. It has also launched a fashion brand for the BBC Earth documentary channel.It carries about 200 fashion brands, including Kodaq Apparel, which was reborn as a fashion brand in South Korea.In the first half of this year, Pond Group earned 21.3 billion won in operating profit on sales of 158.4 billion won. F&F'S RISE IN COSMETICS MARKETIts purchase of the Korean beauty startup came as the luster of licensed apparel brands has faded in South Korea. It also followed its bigger domestic ODM rival F&F Co.'s launch of the cosmetics brand MLB Beauty in China in 2022.Korean ODMs suffered drops in operating profits in 2023. Operating profit at Cowell Fashion, the parent of Pond Group, slipped 12% to 34.4 billion won in 2023, versus 39.0 billion won in 2022.Youngone Corp., a Korean ODM for The North Face and Nike, posted a 23% fall to 637.1 billion won in operating profit, compared with the previous year's 823.0 billion won. In the first half of this year, its operating profit further declined by 37% on-year to 237.5 billion won.By contrast, F&F, which carries the license for MLB clothes for the US Major League Baseball, bucked the trend. Its operating profit remained steady at 527 billion won last year.Since the launch of MLB Beauty in China in September 2022, it has been sharply expanding its online presence through Alibaba’s Tmall, social media platform Weibo and other online marketplaces. By Hyung-Joo Ohohj@hankyung.comYeonhee Kim edited this article