In today’s briefing:
- Webtoon Entertainment IPO Preview
- Impact on SK Inc Post Record Divorce Ruling for SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-Won
- Korea Gas Corp: Drill Baby Drill
- Kakao Pay Lockup Expiry – US$1bn Overhang from Alipay
Webtoon Entertainment IPO Preview
- Webtoon Entertainment is getting ready to complete its IPO on the NASDAQ exchange in 2H 2024. Webtoon Entertainment is a subsidiary of Naver Corp (035420 KS).
- Webtoon is seeking to raise as much of US$500 million at a valuation of US$3 billion to US$4 billion.
- Webtoon Entertainment is one of the largest Korean company related IPOs in 2024.
Impact on SK Inc Post Record Divorce Ruling for SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-Won
- We discuss the outlook for the likely impact on SK Inc post record divorce ruling for the SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-Won and his estranged wife Roh So-Young.
- Last week, a South Korean appellate court ordered Chairman Chey to pay 1.38 trillion won to Roh. Chey is appealing this case and the Supreme Court’s ruling is still pending.
- It is in the best interest of SK Inc to raise the overall value of the company since the payment of the divorce is mostly based in cash.
Korea Gas Corp: Drill Baby Drill
- On 3 June, the shares of Korea Gas jumped limit up 30% to 38,700 won on huge volume (13.4 million), which was 37x higher than the previous day volume traded.
- This was driven by the announcement of the South Korean President Yoon giving the approval to conduct exploratory drilling for potentially vast oil and gas prospects near Pohang.
- The Korean government announced that there is a “very high” possibility the area contains as much as 14 billion barrels of oil and gas.
Kakao Pay Lockup Expiry – US$1bn Overhang from Alipay
- Alipay will come out of its placement linked lockup for its remaining stake in Kakaopay (377300 KS) today.
- Alipay (i.e. Alibaba Group (9988 HK)) had earlier sold some of its stake in Jun 2022 and Mar 2024. It still has over US$1bn worth of shares left to sell.
- In this note, we talk about the deal dynamics and run the deal through our ECM framework.
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