South Korea's K Bank is delaying its listing again

South Korean online lender K Bank Co. has postponed its planned more than $700 million initial public offering (IPO) on the Seoul Stock Exchange for the second time after failing to attract enough investor demand, according to a regulatory filing on Friday , Bloomberg announces.

K Bank, the digital banking division of the telecom giant KT Corp., stated, according to kedglobal.com: "The latest estimates regarding the demand from institutional investors did not confirm sufficient interest for a successful listing, so we decided to we give up the IPO".

The bank planned to set the offer price on Friday, and the market debut was scheduled for October 30. A successful listing would have made the offering South Korea's largest IPO in more than two and a half years and valued the bank at 5 trillion won ($3.6 billion).

K Bank will resume the IPO procedure early next year, the company said.

NH Investment & Securities Co., KB Securities Co. and Bank of America Corp. handles the K Bank offer.

The South Korean bank wanted to raise up to 984 billion won by offering 82 million shares for sale. K Bank planned to use the proceeds thus obtained for working capital and technology investments.

The bank's listing would have been South Korea's biggest since battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd.'s $10.7 billion IPO in January 2022, according to Bloomberg data.

K Bank posted a net profit of 85.4 billion won in the first half of the current year, more than three times that of the same period in 2023.

According to the financial investment industry, K Bank intends to resume the listing request at the beginning of next year, with the change in the structure of the offer, including the number of shares offered. "With a total number of shares offered reaching 82 million, we determined that the current structure of the IPO will not attract sufficient investment demand for a successful listing", explained a K Bank official, quoted by kedglobal. com.

Stock demand estimates were released up to October 16, and they showed weaker demand than initially expected.

"We plan to re-list as soon as possible and will strive to ensure that we are recognized for the right corporate value during the listing process," concluded the K Bank official.