KakaoBank to Raise 750 Billion Won in Paid-in Capital Increase... TPG as New Shareholder

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] KakaoBank announced on the 27th that it held a board meeting and resolved to proceed with a common stock rights offering worth a total of 750 billion KRW.

KakaoBank plans to newly issue 31,916,595 shares at an issue price of 23,500 KRW per share. The investment valuation of KakaoBank is 8.58 trillion KRW (based on pre-capital increase completion).

Through this rights offering, KakaoBank welcomed the global private equity firm TPG Capital as a new shareholder.

KakaoBank allocated 10.64 million shares to TPG Capital, amounting to approximately 250 billion KRW. The payment date for TPG Capital is December 12, and the effective date of the capital increase is the following day, December 13.

Headquartered in San Francisco and Fort Worth, USA, TPG Capital is a global private equity firm investing in top global companies such as Uber, the world's largest ride-sharing service; Spotify, the world's largest music streaming and media service provider; and Baidu Financial, the mobile payment subsidiary of Baidu, China's largest search portal. Its assets under management total 103.3 billion USD (approximately 117 trillion KRW), ranking it among the top global firms.

KakaoBank expects that this investment will not only strengthen its capital but also facilitate collaboration with TPG Capital’s extensive investment network when expanding into global markets.

At the board meeting held on the same day, KakaoBank also resolved to proceed with a rights offering for existing shareholders. The size of this offering is approximately 500 billion KRW and will be allocated according to the proportion of stock ownership. The record date for new share allocation is December 11, and the payment date is December 29.

Upon the successful completion of both the third-party and existing shareholder rights offerings as planned, the paid-in capital will increase from 1.8255 trillion KRW to 2.5755 trillion KRW.

Additionally, KakaoBank is accelerating its initial public offering (IPO). It completed the auditor designation application at the end of September and plans to send out bidding proposals and select underwriters within the year to prepare for the official listing.