SM Shipping Announces IPO Next Month... Anticipated to Secure New Growth Engines

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] SM Line has officially begun preparations for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) to list on the KOSDAQ.

According to the financial investment industry on the 11th, SM Line, a shipping division affiliate of SM Group, plans to finalize the public offering price through demand forecasting on the 1st and 2nd of next month, and conduct a subscription for general investors on the 4th and 5th of the same month. Out of the 846,105,50 shares scheduled for listing, 33,844,220 shares will be offered to the public. The desired price range for the public offering is 18,000 to 25,000 KRW per share.

SM Line, an affiliate of SM Group established in 2016 after acquiring most of Hanjin Shipping’s organization, currently operates its shipping division led by CEO Park Ki-hoon as its main business, with a separate construction division.

SM Line recorded approximately 1 trillion KRW in annual sales and 138.2 billion KRW in operating profit last year, and has been expanding its performance further this year. The second quarter results showed a 16.7% increase in sales and a 29.2% increase in operating profit compared to the first quarter.

The container shipping services of SM Line’s shipping division consist of four West Coast America routes calling at Long Beach, Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland, and nine Asia routes calling at Shanghai, Haiphong, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok. The company operates a total of 18 vessels and has recently deployed temporary vessels to help alleviate logistics difficulties for domestic export companies.

SM Line has signed a business agreement with the Korea International Trade Association to provide dedicated shipping space weekly for small and medium export shippers, and plans to deploy more than 10 additional temporary vessels by the end of this year.

Since 2016, when shipping companies stopped calling at the Port of Portland on the U.S. West Coast, SM Line actively pioneered new routes by launching container services there in 2019. SM Line continues to expand its intermodal services transporting containers from terminals via railroads to various inland locations in the U.S., and is also actively considering opening East Coast America routes calling at New York and Savannah in the future.