This article was displayed on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 4:56 p.m. on May 15, 2026.
The sale process for SK TNS, an information and communications equipment and IT infrastructure company, has entered the final stage. With the main bid and submission of a letter of commitment (LOC) completed, a preferred bidder is expected to be selected soon. A total of three parties, including the Pantech C&I consortium, are said to be competing.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 15th, Samil PwC, the sell-side advisor for SK TNS, recently closed the main bid. The sell-side later received letters of commitment (LOC) again from bidders on the 8th and is said to be in the final review to select the preferred bidder.
Among the three, the most likely acquisition candidate is considered to be Pantech C&I. It formed a consortium with a domestic private equity fund (PEF) manager to participate in this bid. Pantech C&I, launched in 1995 as an affiliate of Pantech, is an information and communications and network infrastructure company and is seen as having business relevance to SK TNS. Founder Park Byung-yeop leads the company.
SK TNS is a specialist information and communications infrastructure construction company established in 2015 through a physical spin-off of the telecommunications division of SK Construction, the predecessor of SK ecoplant. It has focused on building telecommunications networks such as base stations, repeaters, and optical lines, and recently expanded into 5G Network infrastructure, data center power infrastructure construction, and construction of fuel cell, ESS, and solar facilities. SK Telecom, SK Broadband, and other SK Group affiliates are major clients.
Private equity firm Alchemist Capital Partners Korea acquired 100% equity of SK TNS from SK ecoplant in 2021. The sale price at the time was about 290 billion won. The seller, SK ecoplant, also invested 60 billion won in Alchemist's fund, retaining an equity stake.
In the market, the discussed sale price for SK TNS is in the mid- to high-300 billion won range to around 400 billion won. When the sale was pursued last year, the sell-side also expected a price around 400 billion won, but bidders were reportedly looking at the low- to mid-300 billion won range as fair value. In this acquisition race as well, price expectations and the likelihood of closing the transaction are expected to be key variables in selecting the preferred bidder.
SK TNS's performance is stable, but assessments of its growth potential are mixed. SK TNS posted 718.6 billion won in revenue last year, down from 780.4 billion won the previous year.