SK Securities’ headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul (Courtesy of SK)
SK Securities Co., a former unit of South Korea’s No. 2 conglomerate SK Group, is expanding its presence in the domestic equity capital market by strengthening its role in initial public offerings and new share issuance.
The brokerage house is the lead underwriter for Rokit Healthcare Inc., an organ regeneration tech firm that has recently filed for a preliminary review of listing on the junior bourse Kosdaq.
It is the first time that SK Securities has become a sole lead underwriter for an IPO of a company that is not an SK Group affiliate since the brokerage firm was separated from the conglomerate in July 2018.
The most recent IPO in which SK Securities acted as a sole lead underwriter for listing of a company outside SK Group was the Kosdaq debut of biotech Eone Diagnomics in June 2018, which was delisted in April of this year due to poor financial condition.
SK Securities was separated from SK Group in 2018 as the conglomerate, which was transformed into a holding company in 2015, was ordered by Korean authorities to sell the brokerage firm as the law bans non-financial holding firms from owning shares in a financial subsidiary.
Seoul-based private equity firm J&W Partners bought around 10% of SK Securities from SK Group for 51.5 billion won ($37.2 million) in July 2018. The PE house owned 20.23% of the brokerage firm as of May 23; most of the remaining shares are trading on the main Kospi.
Since separated from SK Group, SK Securities has acted as an underwriter for IPOs of SK Biopharmaceuticals, SK Bioscience Co. and SK IE Technology Co. based on its networks with the conglomerate units. But it has struggled with growing its presence in listing procedures of a company outside SK.
The brokerage firm started building its track record in listing of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) first, leading market debuts of nine SPACs since July 2018, seven of which have merged with private companies.
In June 2023, SK Securities became one of the underwriters of the IPO of CUBOX Co., an artificial intelligence-backed image recognition tech firm, marking its first track record as an IPO manager in five years.
The brokerage house is also active in rights offerings of domestic companies. It led new share issuance of biotech Clinomics Inc., wireless communication device firm Ace Technologies Corp. and clean air solutions provider Nuriplan Co. last year and drugmaker Samsung Pharmaceutical Co. this year.
It compares with that the brokerage firm led only four rights issues for 12 years from 2010.
SK Securities has recently expanded its division for equity capital market by hiring external professionals to strengthen its business in IPO, rights offerings and mezzanine debts.
By Seok-Cheol Choi
dolsoi@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.
