 In 1999, a joint venture between Samsung C&T and worldwide British retail chain Tesco, ‘SamsungTesco’ was launched, and it has grown into the second largest retailer in Korea by taking over 33 Homever(ex-Carrefour) stores since 2008.In September 2015 the company was sold to MBK Partners, a South Korean buyout firm, which partnered with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singapore's Temasek Holdings in a transaction worth £4.2 billion.It is headquartered in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea in 2015, and operates a total of 107 hypermarkets and 828 expresses nationwide.