PIE, Hana Financial No.25 SPAC Merger Passes Preliminary Listing Review

PIE (CEO Choi Jung-il) has passed the preliminary review for listing on the KOSDAQ by the Korea Exchange. PIE, which is pursuing a merger with Hana Financial 25th SPAC, is attracting attention as the second ‘mega SPAC’ merger case with a public offering amount exceeding 30 billion KRW. The company plans to submit a securities registration statement to the Financial Supervisory Service soon and hold an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to decide on the merger.

PIE, a specialized company in AI vision inspection and smart factory solutions for secondary battery manufacturing processes, counts major domestic and international battery cell manufacturers and global automakers among its key clients. As a result of pursuing customer and business diversification strategies, it is evaluated to have secured stable growth potential. Recently, by participating in a smart factory construction project connecting the global production lines of a large battery cell company, PIE is also emerging as a smart factory solution provider in the secondary battery field.

PIE provides its own developed smart factory solutions that integrate, analyze, and monitor vast data collected from existing inspection equipment, enabling prediction of future process abnormalities and defects to its clients. As the secondary battery industry gradually develops and client companies advance their process management, demand for smart factory solutions is increasing, which is expected to benefit PIE.

Supplying AI-based inspection vision solutions for all processes in secondary battery manufacturing, PIE is preparing for a second leap by expanding its business area with AI-based smart factory solutions. Prior to this, PIE has secured a lineup of inspection solutions covering all form factors (types) of medium and large secondary batteries, possessing competitiveness that covers basic prismatic, pouch, and 21-pi cylindrical types, as well as the next-generation 46-pi cylindrical type.

A PIE representative stated, “As global electric vehicle companies are expected to expand the adoption of 4680 standard batteries, leading global battery cell manufacturers are rushing to make new investments and formalize pilot production and mass production plans. Based on accumulated field experience and solution lineup, we will secure proactive inspection technologies applicable to next-generation batteries such as the 4680 standard and all-solid-state batteries and lead the market.”

A representative from Hana Financial 25th SPAC emphasized, “PIE, which provides machine vision and smart factory solutions essential to the secondary battery manufacturing process, will be the first domestic company in the secondary battery industry to be listed for inspection and smart factory solution development. Although the circulating shares immediately after the merger listing account for about 22% of the total issued shares, as much as 12% of these are strategic friendly shareholders, making the possibility of overhang after listing very low, thus ensuring a stable public offering structure.”