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SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (LGES) is likely to raise up to 12.8 trillion won ($10.87 billion) in what could be the country’s biggest initial public offering, as the battery maker seeks funds to expand and meet booming demand for EV batteries.
Even at the low end of the range, this would be South Korea’s largest listing, beating Samsung (KS:005930) Life Insurance’s 4.9 trillion won IPO in 2010.
LGES is LG Chem Ltd’s wholly owned battery subsidiary, which supplies Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc, General Motor Co and Hyundai Motor Co among others.
It expects to offer 34 million new shares in an indicative range of 257,000 won – 300,000 won per share, it said in a regulatory filing.
LG Chem plans to offer 8.5 million existing shares in the same price range, according to a separate filing.
In this range, LGES’ valuation would be as much as 70.2 trillion won, the company said in a statement.
KB Securities and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) will lead the proposed deal. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Daishin Securities, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Shinhan Investment Corp have also been appointed as bookrunners.
The pricing is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks, with a listing in Seoul expected in late January.
South Korea is seeing its hottest IPO market on record this year. So far, more than 20 companies have gone public on the country’s main KOSPI market, raising about 17 trillion won, beating the 8.8 trillion won raised in all of 2010, the previous biggest year on record, according to the Korea Exchange.
Global EV sales, estimated at 2.5 million vehicles in 2020, are forecast to grow more than 12-fold to 31.1 million by 2030 and account for nearly a third of new vehicle sales, according to consulting firm Deloitte.
($1 = 1,177.0600 won)
