A Seoul branch office of Korea Investment & Securities Co. puts up a banner for SK IE Technology Co.’s initial public offering on the KOSPI market on April 28, 2021, on the first day of its two-day public subscription period. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 29 (Korea Bizwire) — SK IE Technology Co. (SKIET), a battery materials subsidiary of SK Innovation Co., drew a record-breaking subscription from retail investors for its initial public offering (IPO) on the Seoul bourse, the company’s IPO manager said Thursday.
SKIET has received 80.9 trillion won (US$73.1 billion) of deposits from individual investors during the two-day subscription period, according to the data compiled by the firm’s bookrunner MiraeAsset Daewoo Securities.
The maker of lithium-ion battery separators has set the IPO price at 105,000 won (US$94.60) per share, which would help it raise 2.2 trillion won upon its debut on the KOSPI market on May 11.
The IPO subscription topped the previous record set by SK Bioscience Co., which drew 63.6 trillion won from retail investors for its IPO last month.
The vaccine development subsidiary of SK Group has recently signed a contract with the U.S. vaccine developer Novavax for the consignment production of its COVID-19 vaccines.
SKIET supplies battery separators to major EV makers, including Tesla and Volkswagen, taking up 26.5 percent of the global wet separator market, according to SNE Research.
Separators are one of the key components of EV batteries, which are important in preventing batteries from exploding in the charging process, and take up about 15-20 percent of battery production costs.
SKIET said it will use the proceeds from the IPO to expand production as the wet separator market is expected to face a supply crunch beginning in 2023 in line with growing EV demand.
Last month, SKIET announced a 1.13 trillion-won investment plan to build two more separator plants at an existing complex in Poland to step up its production capacity. It also has factories in South Korea and China.
SKIET posted 468.3 billion won in sales and 125.2 billion won in operating profits last year, its financial report showed.
The IPO process comes after SK Innovation earlier this month agreed to pay 2 trillion won to its bigger home rival LG Energy Solution Ltd. to put an end to a two-year legal battle over EV battery technology.
(Yonhap)
