SEOUL– Kyobo Life Insurance, one of South Korea’s leading life insurers, said Wednesday it has resumed its push for an initial public offering (IPO), with the aim of getting listed on the country’s main bourse in the first half of next year.
At a board meeting Tuesday, Kyobo decided to apply for preliminary approval in December and complete its IPO within the first half of next year.
Kyobo said the envisioned IPO would help the company diversify its funding sources in preparation for the introduction of the International Financial Reporting Standard 17 (IFRS17) in 2023, a new accounting rule for insurance products.
It will also pave the way for Kyobo, the nation’s No. 3 life insurer after Samsung Life Insurance Co. and Hanwha Life Insurance Co., to convert itself into a financial holding company, Kyobo added.
Kyobo said the company will finalize plans for its IPO size and timing in consideration of the market situation and other factors.
Kyobo’s IPO push has been in limbo due to a prolonged legal battle with Affinity Equity Partners, a Hong Kong-based private equity fund that helped Kyobo acquire a 24-percent stake in the insurer from now-defunct Daewoo International in 2012, over its failed IPO.
In October 2018, Affinity Equity Partners exercised a put option on 6 million shares in Kyobo Life Insurance at a strike price of 409,000 won (US$346) per share after the insurer failed to deliver on its promise to conduct an IPO by September 2015.
Kyobo Life Insurance Chairman Shin Chang-jae refused to buy those shares at the price and lodged a complaint with the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICC) over the strike price. In early September this year, the ICC rejected Affinity Equity Partners’ request.
In the wake of the ICC ruling, a Kyobo official said, Affinity Equity Partners is expected to cooperate actively in the company’s plan to go public.
Source: Yonhap News Agency