Missha closed 54% of its stores and lost 68B won under private equity ownership

Missha was founded in 2000 by Able C&C and became one of Korea's first and most successful road-shop cosmetics brands, expanding to over 600 stores worldwide and generating 181 billion won in sales by 2009. Its affordable, high-quality positioning made it a staple of the K-beauty boom across Asia. In 2017, IMM Private Equity acquired Able C&C for approximately 400 billion won (188.2 billion won for a 25.5% stake, with the total investment reaching 400 billion won), betting on continued K-beauty growth.

The acquisition timing was unfortunate. The 2016 THAAD diplomatic row had already begun reducing Chinese consumer demand for Korean brands, and competition from rising C-beauty brands was intensifying. In January 2015, Missha had abruptly closed all 20 of its Hong Kong and Macau stores, with employees notified via WhatsApp that 'the boss is gone' — an early warning sign of the brand's international struggles. Under IMM PE's ownership, the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow to Missha's offline road-shop model.

Missha's operating loss peaked at approximately 68 billion won in 2020. Store count dropped from 603 in 2019 to 273 by 2023 — a 54.7% reduction. The road-shop network in Korea was particularly hard hit, with hundreds of locations closed. IMM PE attempted to sell Able C&C in 2022 but failed to find a buyer at an acceptable valuation, eventually pausing the sale in 2024 to focus on value improvement.