TLGY Acquisition Corporation

Special Purpose Acquisition Company with deep roots in private equity and transformational operations that reflect the career of our founder, Jin-Goon Kim, as both a blue-chip private equity partner and a public and private company CEO.

About Us

We are a new blank check company seeking a business combination in the global biopharma or technology enabled business-to-consumer (“B2C”) industries. TLGY is led by Jin-Goon Kim, a former partner of TPG Capital and a former CEO of industry leaders in Asia, including Dell Korea and Li Ning.

Our co-presidents, Dr. Theron Odlaug and Steven Norman, have helped run, build, and invest in leading public and private companies in the global healthcare and technology-enabled consumer sectors respectively. Our founder and board members have had long and successful tenures as senior leaders with top investment platforms, including TPG, Softbank, and IMM (a leader in Korea).

Strategy

We will utilize a private equity style investment approach in finding targets with long-term growth potential and securing favorable deal terms.

  • Li Ning, a leading sportswear brand in China, had its market capitalization increase from approximately US$700 million in 2012 when Mr. Kim, as its CEO, launched its multi-year transformation program, to over US$30 billion as of end of August 2021
  • Mr. Kim assumed the role of CEO of China Grand Auto in 2007, shortly after it was capitalized at a valuation of roughly US$500 million dollars, and in 2015 the company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange at a market capitalization of approximately US$15 billion.

Competitive Differentiation

We intend to identify, merge with, and operate a business based on our differentiated capabilities:

  • Investment Expertise
    Decades of combined experience in private equity and venture capital investing, with dozens of successful exits and an aggregate of well over a billion USD of capital returned to institutional investors;
  • Sourcing
    Deep industry expertise and a substantial proprietary network in a wide range of market segments as both investors and operators, and a proven track record of execution across dozens of transactions; and
  • Value Creation
    Operational leadership and demonstrated shareholder value-creation across multiple industries and companies.
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Business Strategy

Our strategy is rooted in our broad network of global relationships, deep industry and operational expertise, and highly differentiated deal-sourcing and structuring skills that will provide us with a strong target pipeline. We will focus on transformational growth companies that seek value-added partners and will execute private equity style value creation programs post business combination. We have deep experience in:

  • Selecting favorable target sectors based on forward-looking market dynamics;
  • Identifying and commercializing innovations with breakthrough potential that can fuel sustainable and profitable growth;
  • Hands-on business building, transformations, and technology implementations that offer differentiated value propositions for entrepreneur owners and thus create proprietary deal dynamics;
  • Developing and executing highly focused value-creation programs to drive growth, profitability, cost reduction, and/or industry consolidation;
  • Navigating large public and private businesses through a myriad of executional challenges that stem from rapid growth, large strategic shifts, and implementation of bold and aspirational plans;
  • Advising leading companies and entrepreneurs globally on strategy, deal structuring, capital markets, domestic and cross-border M&A; and
  • Building, guiding and / or partnering with management teams to deliver on transformative company goals.
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Business Combination Criteria

In line with our business strategy, below are key aspects of our business combination criteria.

  • Macro Tailwind and Key Enabling Trends
    Our founder identified major industry inflection points in large growth markets as opportunities to generate additional revenues and profits. Although China Grand Auto rode the wave of rapid industry growth of the later 2000s, its business grew seemingly much faster than the market, expanding 7x in revenues and 40x in profits within four years, largely because our founder led its business mix shift from low-margin car sales to profitable services and ancillary products just as consumer demand for these new business lines was taking off. In the same vein, we intend to focus on the rare disease segment that is growing at double digits and has the tailwind of favorable regulatory support, and to seek targets that have innovative technology development and/or commercialization strategies. We will be looking for consumer companies that are well positioned to capitalize on various technological developments in Asia, which has matured as a center for various technology innovations.
  • Value Creation through Transformation
    Our founder executed winning business models in growth companies whose entrepreneur management had built outstanding businesses, but often without the benefit of training in the world’s leading operations. Our founder helped grow them into industry leaders by faithfully deploying breakthrough strategies and operational toolkits such as industry roll-up, fast fashion, Supply Chain Management (“SCM”) digitization, CRM and KPI based direct retail, and SKU and product portfolio optimization. Hence, we favor a target with solid business and management that still has ample opportunities to benefit from global best-practices. Our Co-President Steven Norman is a thought leader in sales strategies for technology businesses, both as a practitioner and advisor, and he will provide unique insights into growth opportunities.
  • Biopharma Expertise
    Since the late 2010s, our founder has successfully invested in or has worked with pioneers in healthcare. Our management team and board’s experience in the biopharma industry equip us with a wealth of scientific knowledge that can be used to assess the quality of a company’s underlying science, market potential, competition, drug portfolio and pipeline, and preclinical and/or clinical data, and to analyze regulatory frameworks. We will apply analytics to validate the commercial potential of target products. We will favor companies whose products have progressed sufficiently and have a clear path to fast commercialization such that we can evaluate and reduce risk in the investment. We will search for companies that have the potential to disrupt the industry, such as companies targeting central nervous system disorders with differentiated and yet credible therapeutic strategies and attractive economics.
  • Technology Expertise
    Having started his career in technology (McKinsey technology, enterprise software VC, and Dell Inc.), our founder has relied on technology to drive his corporate transformations. Most recently, he has invested in and/or worked with such companies as an innovative micro-brewery platform and a non-bank fintech platform. Our Co-President Steve Norman has spent decades working with a wide range of technology hardware, software and services companies, and our independent board member Donghyun Han was one of the early technology venture investors in Asia. Our combined but varied set of experiences will help us identify winning target companies and support their growth.
  • The Asia Angle
    Asia is playing an increasingly important role in growth companies’ paths to global leadership, particularly in highly dynamic biopharma and B2C technology sectors. With our roots in key Asian markets, we can help expand our targets’ Asia presence, whether it is with respect to finding new growth opportunities or obtaining valuable resources in Asia - and vise-versa for helping Asian companies expand into global markets. Markets around the world tend to have different development cycles and technical innovation focus; clever interplay across multiple regions can provide a leg up in a race for global leadership. Innovators in Asia that are leading in certain sectors - such as AI, gaming, and fintech - provide interesting cross-border cooperation opportunities. Promising biopharma innovations that target global markets are originating in Asia where clinical trials are on the rise and certain regulators are promoting reforms.
  • Public Market Benefits
    We intend to seek targets that wish, with our help, to leapfrog the process of becoming mature public companies and to quickly capitalize on rapidly evolving market opportunities by accessing capital markets and uplifting market positioning. We prefer situations where increased public transparency, enhanced governance and disciplined financial control would have a meaningfully positive impact on a target and to help it develop more quickly into a market leader.
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Our Team

Portrait

Mr. Jin-Goon Kim, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Two decades of senior leadership in a top global private equity firm and as a serial transformational CEO in leading public and private companies.

  • Investor and founder of TLGY and LIC (2017 – Present)
  • Partner and Investment Review Committee member, TPG Capital (2006 – 2016)
  • CEO and Vice Chairman, Li Ning (2012 – 2014; top sportswear brand)
  • CEO and Vice Chairman, China Grand Auto (2007 – 2011; top auto platform)
  • President, Dell Korea (2002 – 2006)

A leading industry figure and award-winning CEO:

  • 2009 Outstanding Growth Award (TPG Capital)
  • 2009 Dealership Group of the Year (21st Century, top China financial media)
  • 2010 Men of the Year in the Auto Retail (top China industry forum)
  • 2012 Most Innovative Business Model (21st Century, top China financial media)

Immediately prior to founding TLGY Holdings in May 2021, Mr. Kim focused on global, high growth investments with strong potential to benefit from attractive emerging macro trends and in which he could apply his experience implementing business transformation to drive value creation. From 2006 to 2016 Mr. Kim was with TPG Capital, a leading global private equity firm, where he served as a Partner and a member of its Asia investment review committee. In his capacity as a TPG partner, Mr. Kim also served as a CEO or transformation leader of multiple TPG portfolio companies, often in parallel. Mr. Kim co-led TPG’s four major transformational investments across China’s core consumer sectors. Each of the four investments had a differentiated value creation angle in the form of a disruptive business model and/or technology; they collectively returned well over a billion dollars to TPG’s investors.

From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Kim served as CEO and Vice Chairman of Li Ning, a leading sportswear brand in China with more than US$2 billion of annual sales in 2020, where he devised and launched a brand transformation that helped salvage the company from financial distress and laid the foundation for its ultimate revival as a leading brand and a company that today has a market capitalization greater than US$30 billion. Mr. Kim served from 2011 to 2015 as a Board member of Daphne International Holdings Limited, a leading women’s footwear brand in China, where he led the shoe industry’s first successful wholesale implementation of fast retail and digitization of supply chain management that sharply uplifted sales, profits, and market capitalization of what had been a stagnant business prior to his engagement. Mr. Kim from 2007 to 2011 served as CEO and Vice Chairman of China Grand Auto, during which time he helped pioneer the company’s retail roll-up in China and the digitization of the company’s management system to grow the company’s sales by seven times and to take it from a #11 mid-size platform in China to the #1 auto retail and services company both in China and in the world. Within a few years thereafter, the company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and reached a market capitalization of approximately US$15 billion. Mr. Kim also served from 2009 to 2010 as a Board member of UniTrust Group, a leading Chinese independent equipment leasing company, during which time he helped build a management team and formulate a new strategy that transformed a start-up operation into a large sector leader that would eventually list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at a market capitalization of approximately US$2 billion.

Before joining TPG Capital, Mr. Kim served from 2002 to 2006 as President of Dell Korea, the Korean affiliate of Dell, a global leader in hardware, software and services with more than $60 billion in annual sales in 2020. He successfully led the implementation of Dell’s direct model in Korea for the first time, thereby firmly establishing Dell as a leading player in a market where it had previously struggled to secure a meaningful market presence or to build a profitable business. Mr. Kim served from 2000 to 2002 as a Vice President of Internet Business Capital Corporation, a Cambridge, Massachusetts based early-stage venture capital firm that helped found or participated in early investments in successful ventures including Cambridge Technology Partners and Razorfish. Mr. Kim started his career in 1996 in the Seoul and Boston offices of McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy. Mr. Kim earned an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard College, a diploma from the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre, and an AB in East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Government from Harvard College.

Portrait

Mr. Steven Norman, President and Chief Financial Officer

Over 20 years of driving business growth across Asia Pacific and a large following of Asian technology CEO’s (particularly in Australia)

  • Founder, Growth Acumen (2017 - Present)
  • Managing Director, Targus Asia-Pacific (2008 - 2016)
  • A member of the Executive Team, Dell Asia Pacific (1993 – 2006; various roles)

Mr. Norman is a seasoned Asia-Pacific technology industry executive whose specialties include corporate turnarounds and growth. Mr. Norman has more than 20 years of experience as an executive and a director in the Asia-Pacific technology space. Most recently, Mr. Norman was the Founder of Growth Acumen, a consulting firm focused on helping technology and SaaS companies accelerate growth in Asia-Pacific.

From 2008 to 2016, Mr. Norman served as Asia-Pacific Managing Director for Targus, the global leader in notebook cases and technology solutions where he managed all functions across 12 countries and helped grow the revenues and profits of the business significantly. From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Norman served first as the Head of Strategy and Operations and then as a board member from 2008 onwards at a wagering and sports betting company in Australia. From 1993 to 2006, Mr. Norman was part of the Dell Executive Team in Asia Pacific, helping to grow the company from a startup to a multi-billion-dollar business. He helped establish the Dell China business and built the Home & Small Business Division in India. Mr. Norman is also a global thought leader in sales and marketing best practices for technology companies, having written a book on this topic. Mr. Norman completed the Wharton Advanced Management Program (AMP) in 2012 and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Macquarie University.

Portrait

Dr. Shrijay Vijayan, PhD, Independent Director, Chair of the Compensation Committee

Biomedical technology commercialization executive with an extensive industry network and hands-on technical expertise.

  • Director of Innovation and Technology Commercialization, Hospital for Special Surgery (2019 - Present)
  • Head of Innovation and Technology Transfer, Rush University Medical Center (2014 – 2018)
  • Director of Biomedical Licensing and Assistant Director of Technology Commercialization at Rutgers University (2010-2012)
  • Associate Technology Manager, University of Illinois at Chicago (2005-2010)

Dr. Vijayan has worked at both public/private institutions as well as at eminent hospitals and Universities to assess, develop, and commercialize a wide range of technologies including therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices (from rare diseases to neurodegeneration, cancer, autoimmunity, and inflammation). Since 2019, Dr. Vijayan has served as Director of Innovation and Technology Commercialization at the Hospital for Special Surgery, the number one ranked orthopedics hospital in the United States, where he has been closely involved with the assessment and commercialization of biologics and pharmaceuticals for autoimmune indications. From 2012 to 2014, he served as Associate Director, Innovation and Technology Transfer and later between 2014 and 2018, also as Head of Innovation and Technology Transfer at Rush University Medical Center (Rush), a nationally ranked academic medical center. Dr. Vijayan was closely involved in the assessment of commercialization potential of clinical assets that originated from Rush including several phase 2 assets in immuno-oncology and a women’s contraceptive that completed Phase 3 clinical trials and was eventually approved by the FDA. In addition to the various clinical assets, Dr. Vijayan was also closely involved in the assessment of commercialization potential and licensing of technologies including therapeutics for rare diseases and neurodegenerative diseases, diagnostics for cancer and kidney diseases as well as medical devices for neurovascular diseases. From 2007 to 2012, Dr. Vijayan was Co-Founder and Director of Business Development and Scientific Affairs at Optimal Vision Corporation. From 2010 to 2012, Dr. Vijayan served as Director of Biomedical Licensing and Assistant Director of Technology Commercialization at Rutgers University, where he promoted innovative biomedical technologies with the goal of monetizing them through licensing transactions. While at Rutgers, Dr. Vijayan was responsible for assessment and commercialization of a large portfolio of biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies ranging from novel therapeutics for infectious diseases and cancer to biomedical engineering and novel pharmaceutical manufacturing processes.

Dr. Vijayan began his career in Technology commercialization as Associate Technology Manager at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 2005, and from 2006 to 2010, he served as Technology Manager at UIC where he was involved in the assessment and commercialization of various therapeutics including those for sleep apnea, depression, and addiction. Dr. Vijayan earned a PhD in Biology from the City University of New York and an MBA from the UIC. After earning his doctoral degree, Dr. Vijayan completed post-doctoral training, conducting research in neurodegeneration, cancer, and autoimmunity at The University of Chicago.

Portrait

Mr. Donghyun Han, CFA, Independent Director, Chair of the Audit Committee

Over 20 years as a technology investor and entrepreneur, primarily in Korea.

  • Director, ST Invictus Partners (2016 – Present)
  • Senior VP, Korea Telecom Corporation (2008 - 2011)
  • Partner, SAIF (Softbank subsidiary and spin-off) (2001 - 2007)
  • General Partner, Softbank Korea & Softbank Ventures Korea (2000 - 2001)

Mr. Han has since 2016 been the Director and a Shareholder of ST Invictus Partners, a start-up advisory and investment company in Hong Kong. Since 2020, Mr. Han has been a Board Member and the Chair of the Audit Committee of Solid Inc., a KOSDAQ-listed Korean telecom equipment company with a market cap of approximately KRW375 billion (US$335 million). Since 2018, Mr. Han has served as Independent Non-Executive Director and Deputy Chair of the Audit Committee for KEB Hana Global Finance, a Hong Kong subsidiary bank of Hana Financial Group. From 2008 to 2011, he was a Senior Vice President in the Strategic Investment Department at KT Corporation, one of South Korea’s largest telecommunications companies. From 2001 to 2007, Mr. Han was Partner and Head of Korea Office at SAIF, a leading Asian private equity firm that was, until its spin off in 2006, a subsidiary of Softbank Group, the Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company. From 2000 to 2001, Mr. Han was a Vice President and General Partner at Softbank Korea & Softbank Ventures Korea, the Korean arm of Softbank Group. Mr. Han obtained an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Business Administration from Seoul National University.

Portrait

Mr. Hyunchan Cho, Independent Director, Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee

Over 20 years in infrastructure investment with a wide entrepreneur and institutional investment network across Asia, particularly in emerging markets.

  • Partner, IMM Investment (2019 – Present)
  • CEO, ICA Asset Management (IMM affiliate) (2019 – Present)
  • Various senior roles, International Finance Corporation (1999 – 2019)

Since 2019, Mr. Cho has served as a partner and the Head of Infrastructure Investment for IMM Investment, a leading Korean alternative asset investment firm. He has also since 2019 served as the CEO of ICA Asset Management, the overseas affiliate of IMM Investment. From 1999 to 2019, Mr. Cho held various positions at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank including Director for Asia-Pacific Infrastructure and Natural Resources, and Senior Country Manager for China, Korea and Mongolia. Mr. Cho obtained a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Tokyo, a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University, and a BS in Civil Engineering from Yonsei University in South Korea.

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