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| Kakao Mobility logo |
By Anna J. Park
Kakao Mobility is said to be eyeing local stock markets for an initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to come as early as later this year.
According to the local investment banking industry, the company is set to send a request for proposal (RFP) to major securities firms here to select underwriters.
Its plan to pursue a local IPO comes as a surprise to many, because the country's largest Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform was expected to target a listing on U.S. stock markets to maximize the firm's valuation as well as raise maximum capital, considering the fact that Kakao Mobility's big-time global investors include Google and Carlyle Group.
However, nothing seems to be certain about the IPO plan, especially as to where the mobility platform subsidiary of Kakao aims to list itself, according to officials and sources familiar with the issue.
"As to the company's IPO plan, no specific details have been confirmed as of now," officials from Kakao Mobility said. "The company has yet to send the RFP to local securities firms, and no timeline has been set regarding the IPO plan," it added. Kakao Mobility also said the rumors last month about its potential listing on U.S. stock markets were also fueled by industry expectations and not on what the company officially announced.
Although the firm remains undecided about which stock market it targets for its future listing, market participants believe there might be various factors that gave the firm second thoughts about the possibility of a local IPO.
While the company boasts some of the biggest global investors, the mobility platform's business model is still based heavily on the domestic market. Also, major Korean e-commerce retailer Coupang's bearish stock price performance since its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-March could have played a part in their reevaluation of listing markets, they say.
Based on 28 million registered customers and over 250,000 taxi drivers of Kakao T mobile app ― Kakao Mobility's mobility service platform ― the firm's valuation has continued to soar at a fast rate, reaching some 4.5 trillion won ($3.9 billion). In February, when Carlyle Group invested $200 million in the firm, its corporate value was estimated at around 3.3 trillion won. The corporate valuation rose to 3.4 trillion won in April with Google's investment worth $50 million.
Kakao Mobility's value nearly tripled in three years, since U.S.-based TPG Capital, along with Japan-based ORIX Capital and Korea Investment Partners, invested 500 billion won in 2017 when the firm was valued at 1.6 trillion. TPG Capital is also Kakao Mobility's second-largest shareholder with a 16.4 percent stake, following parent company Kakao which holds over a 63 percent stake. Carlyle Group is the third-largest shareholder with a 6.6 percent stake, followed by ORIX Capital with 6.1 percent, Korea Investment Partners with 1.78 percent and Google with 1.7 percent.
Kakao Mobility was launched in 2015 as a mobility unit of Kakao, and was spun off in 2017. The firm accounts for around 80 percent of the domestic mobility market. The firm's big data, accumulated from massive amounts of movement and payment records of customers, has particularly drawn the attention of global big-tech investors.
