Merchant liner SM Line to list on Kosdaq in November

South Korea’s merchant liner SM Line Corp. is set to become a publicly-traded company in November. SM Line has submitted its securities registration filing on Oct. 6 to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) with IPO plans.

Its IPO price band per share stands between 18,000 won ($15.12) and 25,000 won ($21.02), meaning that its enterprise value will be 2.1 trillion won ($1.8 billion won) if the highest price is taken. The company through the IPO will newly raise funds between 609 billion won ($511 million) and 846 billion won ($711 million) depending on the final IPO price.

SM Line said that the raised funds will be used in strengthening its shipping capabilities as well as expanding the adoption of eco-friendly facilities.

SM Line will conduct a demand forecast among the institutional investors early next month. In case of a successful listing, SM Line will mark the country’s first IPO of a shipping company for the first time in 14 years after KSS Line in 2007.

SM Line globally operates a total of 18 ships, which travel on four routes to the west coast of the US and nine routes to Asian cities such as Shanghai, Bangkok and Haiphong. SM Line added that new routes to the US east coast will be set up.

The company posted stellar earnings during the first half of this year with an operating profit of 309 billion won ($259 million). The six-month figure is more than double that of 141 billion won ($118 million) made in the full 12 months of 2020.

SM Line was created in 2018 after SM Group, formerly known as Samla Midas Group, took over assets of bankrupt Hanjin Shipping Co., once a major container ship operator in South Korea.

SM Group affiliates Samla Midas Co., which owns 41.4% of SM Line, as well as TK Chemical Corp. and Samla Co. which respectively own 29.6% and 29.1%, will be partially selling their ownership of the shipping company.

Specifically, SM Group will raise 423 billion won ($355 million), at maximum, with Samla Midas selling 10.15 million shares, TK Chemical 1.35 million shares and Samla 5.41 million shares.

Write to Jin-seong Kim at jskim1028@hankyung.com
Daniel Cho edited this article.