Kakao Pay to go public on Wednesday

Kakao Pay, the mobile payment service arm of Kakao Corp., South Korea‘s top messenger app, will make its market debut on Wednesday, the country’s bourse operator said Monday.

Kakao Pay has set the IPO price at 90,000 won (US$76.50) per share, which will enable the company to raise 1.53 trillion won through the initial public offering.

Kakao Pay‘s market capitalization is expected to reach 11.7 trillion won after its market debut, which would rank the fintech firm among the top 30 market caps.

Late last month, Kakao Pay drew a total of 5.66 trillion won in deposit for IPO subscription from retail investors.

Kakao Pay branched off from the parent Kakao in 2017. Its current services include mobile payment, remittance, insurance and loans.

Kakao Pay is South Korea’s top mobile payment service company with a membership of more than 20 million as of end-June.

The company logged a net loss of 17.2 billion won last year on sales of 246 billion won. (Yonhap)