Kakao Pay revises down IPO size after 2-month delay

South Korea‘s mobile payment app operator Kakao Pay has revised down its target offer price range for the initial public offering of its stocks as its plan to go public underwent a two-month delay, a prospectus showed Tuesday.

The decision will reduce the IPO size of the Ant Group-backed financial arm of internet giant Kakao, by up to some 100 billion won ($86.3 million).

Under the new plan to float 17 million common shares, each share will be priced at the suggested target price range of between 60,000 won and 90,000 won. Previously, the range was between 63,000 won and 96,000 won.

The proposed IPO size of up to 1.63 trillion won will reduce to 1.53 trillion won. The offer price will be confirmed at the book building process scheduled at the end of September. Samsung Securities, JPMorgan Securities and Goldman Sachs are lead underwriters.

Kakao Pay added that its plan to allot at least a share with those who place at least 900,000 won in bid will remain unchanged.

In a revised prospectus, Kakao Pay changed its peer companies Paypal Holdings and Square into StoneCo and Upstart Holdings for valuation. Moreover, for example, Kakao Pay removed the part that it provides access to a peer-to-peer lending service in its description.

This comes as Kakao Pay, which submitted an IPO prospectus on July 2 to the financial authorities, were requested for an adjustment on July 16 as the authorities cited an information that could “undermine investors’ reasonable decision or cause a serious misunderstanding of investors” without elaborating further.

Following the due procedure, the company will start trading on the Korea‘s main bourse Kospi starting Oct. 14. Previously, the company was to be trading starting Aug. 12.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)