A consortium led by South Korean biopharmaceutical company Green Cross has been selected as the preferred bidder for the majority stake sale of UBCare, the nation’s No. 1 electronic medical records system vendor.

The investor group, composed of Green Cross and Synaptic Investment, is looking to buy some 52 percent stake in UBCare from venture capital firms STIC Investment and Kakao Investment, according to investment banking sources on Friday. The shares are roughly valued at 200 billion won ($172.2 million).

The Green Cross-led consortium beat the contender in the final bidding, the Hanwha Life Insurance-Hanwha Asset Management consortium. The groups were shortlisted out of preliminary bidders including Boryung Pharmaceutical and financial investor Corstone Asia.

STIC Investment currently owns a 33.94 percent stake in UBCare, while Kakao Investment holds 18.13 percent voting rights. The investment houses have sought to exit from the company. STIC Investment in December 2015 first bought the stake for some 80 billion won from SK Chemical, while Kakao Investment joined UBCare’s capital increase, injecting 42 billion won in the firm.

This comes amid Green Cross’ bid to control the nation’s largest provider of electronic medical records software.

UBCare sells its EMR solutions to some 23,000 hospitals and pharmacies and holds some 45 percent market share in Korea. Trading on the Korea Exchange’s development board Kosdaq, UBCare recorded 7.7 billion won in net profit in the January-September period in 2019, up nearly 50 percent on-year.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)