SEOUL :South Korea’s LG CNS shares fell from the initial public offering (IPO) price in their trading debut on Wednesday, as the country’s largest stock listing in three years failed to arrest the recent trend of weak debuts.
Shares opened at 60,500 won and were last trading at 59,700 won, down from their issue price of 61,900 won.
Last month, the IT, cloud and AI services provider priced its IPO at the top of its targeted valuation range, raising 1.2 trillion won ($827.1 million).
In morning trade, the firm’s market valuation was about 5.79 trillion won.
The IPO is the largest since LG Energy Solution raised $10.74 billion in 2022.
Last year, South Korea raised $2.85 billion worth of IPOs, according to LSEG data, up slightly from $2.79 billion in 2023.
The offering by LG CNS was one of the few by South Korean firms to draw strong demand in recent months against the backdrop of an IPO market slump since the second half of last year, analysts said.
The retail portion of the initial public offering was oversubscribed nearly 123 times, while more than 2,000 institutional investors made bids worth 76 trillion won during the bookbuilding last month, according to the company.
However, LG CNS’s weak market debut has continued a trend of similarly disappointing listings since last year, which analysts say could further discourage investors and other companies from coming to market.
LG CNS will use 390 billion won of the 594 billion won it raised from the new issuance for mergers and acquisitions, while the rest will go towards paying off debt and investing in facilities, it said in a filing.
LG CNS CEO Hyun Shin-gyoon told reporters last month that it is looking for acquisitions in the AI space with a deal likely to be announced in “the near future”.
About 54 per cent of LG CNS’ sales in the first three quarters of 2024 came from cloud and AI services, company data showed, which Samsung Securities analyst Oh Dong-hwan noted were responsible for faster growth and has higher margins than its other businesses such as IT systems integration and management.
LG CNS reported about 4 trillion won revenue and 313 billion won in operating profit during the first three quarters of 2024, according to its filing.
($1 = 1,450.8900 won)
