Hankook Tire buys Canada's self-driving sensor maker

South Korea's Hankook Tire Group has acquired a majority stake worth 204.5 billion won ($173 million) in Canada's Preciseley Microtechnology Corp., which designs sensors used in autonomous vehicles, as part of business diversification efforts.

Hankook Tire & Technology Co. and its holding company Hankook & Co. made the joint purchase of a 57.1% stake from Seoul-based ACE Equity Partners in the fabless company that designs micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) products, according to the tiremaker's regulatory filings on Tuesday.

Under the deal, Hankook & Co. bought a 34.28% stake in Preciseley Microtechnology for $103 million, while Hankook Tire took another 22.86% stake.

The transaction, to be closed by the end of next January, valued the MEMS device company at around $300 million. ACE Equity will be left with a 28% stake to become the second-largest shareholder in the Canadian company.

Preciseley's MEMS devices combine mechanical and electrical components for use in optical communications systems, as well as in automotive and three-dimensional sensing applications. 

In particular, the company, founded in 2006, succeeded in commercializing its automotive light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system earlier this year. The sensor is used to measure the distance to surrounding objects for autonomous vehicles to navigate environments in real-time.

The LiDAR system is supplied to global carmakers, which are counted as Hankook Tire's customers as well. 

The acquisition comes as Hankook Tire has been working on the sale of its 19.5% stake in South Korea's Hanon Systems Corp., a heat pump systems supplier for carmakers. It is offering the stake, along with a 50.5% stake held by Hahn & Co., a South Korean PE house.

ACE Equity targets high-tech companies with a focus on semiconductor, rechargeable battery and 5G communication industries. In July 2020, it became the first South Korean PE firm to list a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), ACE Convergence, on Nadaq.

Point72 Asset Management, a US hedge fund, is an anchor investor in the $230 million SPAC, which merged with Tempo Automation, a software-based printed circuit board manufacturer.

Last September, ACE Equity sold its controlling stake in Kosdaq-listed Tesna Inc., a semiconductor test service provider, for 400 billion won.

Write to Ji-hye Min and Jun-ho Cha at spop@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article