ING Life Insurance Korea will hold an initial public offering to go public on the main Seoul stock market in May, after gaining the approval of the stock exchange’s operator.
The firm is currently the fifth-largest life insurer in South Korea, and was opened in 1991 by ING Group from the Netherlands. In 2013, the entire Korean unit was sold to MBK Partners LP, one of the country’s top private equity funds.
Since 2015, the Korea Exchange has allowed companies held by private equity funds to go public, but none so far have tried to do so out of concerns about management instability. If everything goes well, MBK and ING could set a precedent, leading similar firms to do the same in the future.
From January to September 2016, ING Life Korea earned KRW3.18 trillion (US$2.77 billion) in operating income and KRW180.8 billion (US$158 million) in net income. The IPO price is estimated to be from KRW25,000 to 30,000.
In late 2016, the company attracted several prominent buyers from China, such as JD Capital, Taiping Insurance Group, and Fosun International. However, a sale did not materialize after geopolitical issues regarding the US’s installation of a missile defence system in South Korea caused a rift between China and its Asian neighbour.
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