fbpx

Type to search

LG Energy Solution IPO Set To Raise Close To $11bn

Battery maker wants funds to expand and meet booming demand for EV batteries. Its IPO early next year could be South Korea’s largest listing


LG Energy Solution
LG Energy Solution is one of a group of Korean battery makers for electric vehicles who want to set up an alliance that creates tech standards that enable batteries to be reused. Photo: Reuters.

 

South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (LGES) is likely to raise up to 12.8 trillion won ($10.9 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 Life Insurance’s 4.9 trillion won IPO in 2010.

LGES is LG Chem Ltd’s wholly-owned battery subsidiary, which supplies Tesla, General Motor and Hyundai Motor among others.

It expects to offer 34 million new shares in an indicative range of 257,000 won to 300,000 won per share ($218 to $254), 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’s valuation would be as much as 70.2 trillion won, the company said in a statement.

 

Big IPO Year For South Korea

KB Securities and Morgan Stanley will lead the proposed deal. Bank of America, Citigroup, Daishin Securities, Goldman Sachs 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.

 

  • Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard

 

ALSO SEE:

Digital Lender Kakao Is South Korea’s Biggest Bank After $2.2bn IPO

Korean IPO Underwriters See Fee Accounts Swell on New Economy Listings

South Korean Crypto Exchanges Told to Toe the Line or Shut Down

 

 

Jim Pollard

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years.