It has become a matter of industry concern whether the domestic physical security market has changed dramatically as SK Telecom is likely to acquire ADT Capps with Australian-based private equity fund Macquarie. SK Telecom is expected to threaten SK Telecom with its NSOK and ADT caps, which are owned by its subsidiary, SK Telink, and to widen the gap between KT Telecop and SK Telecom.

According to industry sources on March 18, SK Telecom-MKIF`s asset management consortium is likely to win a preferred bidder over the CVC Capital, a British private equity firm, which was a rival in the acquisition of ADT Caps.

Some analysts believe that the acquisition of ADT Capt is too high, but it is highly likely that SK Telecom will acquire it.

Although the market has been growing steadily as security has been recognized as the core infrastructure industry of ICT, the domestic physical security market has been growing steadily in order of S1 (49%), ADT Caps (27%) and KT Telecop (13%) There was no change. It is not easy for SK Group to shake up the market in a short period of time with a lot of people and assets invested in the NSOK with a share of 4 ~ 5%.

In this situation, if SK Telecom acquires ADT Caps, it will not be able to directly acquire its own security company, NSOK. However, it will not be merged with SKO Broadband, SK Infosec, and other Internet affiliates such as Internet (IoT), Location Information Technology (LBS) It is expected to accelerate technology convergence including intelligence (AI), 5G, big data, and information security.

In fact, Kim Jang-ki, CEO of NSOK, said at the "NSOK Partners Day" event held in KINTEX, Goyang, Gyeonggi Province on March 14, "As ADT Caps has 570,000 domestic subscriber accounts.

Once Carlisle first announced plans to sell ADT Captures last year, KT, which can be equalized in market share with KT Telecop, emerged as a candidate for acquisition.

However, the market leader, S1, was more concerned about the possibility of SK acquisition than KT. ADT Caps was reported to have hoped to acquire SK Corp. internally.

An expert from the security industry said, "KT has a lot of minds when it is a public corporation, and there are many cases in which the acquisition of ADT CAPs is likely to fail rather than innovation," he said. SK will have more potential in terms of collaboration and convergence among affiliates."

Mr. Hwang Hyung-pyo, CEO of NSWK, mentioned the NSOK as a competitor in the market, in addition to talking to reporters about the acquisition of ADT Caps at a recently held security event, referring to ADT CAPS and KT Telecop. In line with the acquisition of ADT Caps, it is highly evaluated in terms of synergy between SK Group affiliates rather than NSOK itself.

Meanwhile, KT Telecop, which declared its vision of rising to second place in the industry through cloud-based dispatch service last year, is inevitably tense about the possibility of this market change.

An industry expert said, "Even if SK takes over the ADT Captures, its affiliation will have to be slightly different. Therefore, depending on how well it adjusts and synergies, the effect will be different and the impact on existing market players will be different It seems. "

By Lee Gyung Tak kt87@


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