SK Securities becomes lead IPO manager for 1st time since 2018

SK Securities Co., formerly a 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 recently filed for a preliminary review of listing on the junior Kosdaq bourse.

It's the first time for SK Securities to become the 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 its poor financial condition.

SK Securities was separated from SK Group in 2018 when the conglomerate, which was transformed into a holding company in 2015, was ordered by Korean authorities to sell the brokerage firm. Non-financial holding firms are legally banned from owning shares in a financial subsidiary.

Seoul-based private equity firm J&W Partners bought about 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 traded on the main Kospi.

Since its separation from SK Group, SK Securities has acted as an underwriter for IPOs of SK Biopharmaceuticals, SK Bioscience Co. and SK IE Technology Co. by tapping its network with the conglomerate units. But it has struggled to grow its presence in listing procedures of companies outside SK.

The brokerage firm first started building its track record in listing special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). It led market debuts of nine SPACs since July 2018, seven of which have merged with private companies.

In June 2023, SK Securities became an underwriter of the IPO of CUBOX Co., an AI-backed image recognition tech firm, marking its first record as an IPO manager in five years.

The brokerage house is also active in rights offerings of domestic companies. It led new share issuances of biotech firm Clinomics Inc., wireless communication device firm Ace Technologies Corp. and clean air solutions provider Nuriplan Co. last year as well as drugmaker Samsung Pharmaceutical Co. this year.

By comparison, the brokerage firm had led only four rights issues in the 12 years since 2010.

SK Securities recently expanded its division for equity capital market by hiring outside professionals to fortify its business in IPO, rights offerings and mezzanine debts.

Write to Seok-Cheol Choi at dolsoi@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.