This photo, provided by SK On Co. on March 16, 2022, shows the front view of its booth for the InterBattery 2022 exhibition at COEX.
SEOUL, Feb. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — SK On Co., the battery-making unit under South Korea’s SK Group, is struggling after missing the opportune timing for its initial public offering (IPO), and accumulating operating losses.
Investor resistance to the listing of subsidiaries through physical division has become rampant since the listing of LG Energy Solution Ltd., and the stock market situation has worsened.
SK On had no option but to delay its IPO, but this failure served as a stumbling block against its growth.
The company attempted to raise about 4 trillion won (US$3.16 billion) through a pre-IPO last year, but was only able to attract 800 billion won in investment.
Eventually, it had to satisfy pressing needs with the support of its parent company SK Innovation Co., which decided to invest 1 trillion won last year and another 1 trillion won by the end of this year.
Although the nation’s battery industry, from an overall perspective, continues to enjoy high growth, SK On is seeing its operating losses continue to widen.
Unlike LG Energy Solution and Samsung SDI Co., SK On cannot benefit from the strong dollar since its major clients such as Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. make payments in Korean won.
Meanwhile, its plan to build a joint battery factory in Turkey with American automaker Ford Co. was recently canceled.
“SK On’s return to the black has been delayed due to the slow improvement in yield rate. It would be able to bounce back to profits in the fourth quarter of this year at the earliest,” said Noh Woo-ho, an analyst at Meritz Securities.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
