Financial due diligence for Samsung Electronics' acquisition of FläktGroup

PwC Korea provided financial due diligence services in connection with Samsung Electronics’ acquisition of global HVAC company FläktGroup for approximately EUR 1.5 billion. The transaction was Samsung Electronics’ first multi-trillion-won M&A transaction in eight years following its acquisition of Harman in 2017 and represented a strategic investment to expand its HVAC business from residential and commercial air-conditioning systems into industrial and data center central cooling solutions.

FläktGroup is a multinational company comprising 40 legal entities across 24 countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic. The transaction was therefore a highly complex cross-border deal requiring consideration of country-specific accounting, financial and tax matters as well as linguistic and cultural differences. PwC Korea assembled a team of cross-border specialists and provided not only financial due diligence but also competitor financial analysis, reviews of local issues, preliminary purchase price allocation analysis and warranty and indemnity insurance support.

PwC Korea also helped the client develop a thorough understanding of the locked-box mechanism, which remains relatively uncommon in Korea, and supported the transaction closing structure. Through the acquisition, Samsung Electronics established a foundation to expand into industrial central HVAC and AI data center applications, while PwC Korea closely supported the client’s decision-making and transaction process throughout the approximately three- to four-month due diligence period.