South Korean energy supplier SK Innovation Co and SK IE Technology Co have raised 2.25 trillion won (US$2 billion) in the battery material unit’s initial public offering, the country’s biggest in four years.
SK IE Technology has priced the offering at 105,000 won per share, the top of a marketed range, an exchange statement said yesterday.
The portion for institutional investors was 1,883 times oversubscribed. At US$2 billion, the initial public offering (IPO) of the maker of battery separators would be South Korea’s largest since mobile game-maker Netmarble Corp raised US$2.4 billion in 2017, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
The shares had been marketed at 78,000 won to 105,000 won each, with SK Innovation selling 12.8 million shares and SK IE Technology selling another 8.6 million.
LATECOMER
SK Innovation, the energy and chemicals unit of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate, SK Group, was a relative latecomer to the electric-vehicle battery industry, embracing the technology only as part of a diversification push.
The company began developing lithium-ion batteries for hybrid electric vehicles in 2005 and spun off the unit in April 2019.
Battery separators improve the output and stability of batteries.
EXPANSION PLANS
SK IE technology plans to use the IPO proceeds for capital expenditures related to capacity expansion in Poland and China, as well as for the upgrading and maintenance of its production facilities and equipment.
The company last month announced that it would spend 1.1 trillion won building new factories in Poland to meet growing demand amid an electric vehicle boom in Europe.
SK IE Technology’s IPO is being managed by Mirae Asset Securities Co and JPMorgan Chase & Co, assisted by Korea Investment & Securities Co and Credit Suisse Group AG. Its shares are expected to start trading on May 11.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS