This article was published on May 29, 2025, at 2:22 p.m. on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove site.
Content production company SLL JoongAng decided to extend its listing deadline with private equity firm Praxis Capital. The company planned to go public within three years after raising investment in 2021 but failed to achieve this. Last year, the listing deadline was extended by one year, and this time it has been extended again by one year. According to the contract, the extension can only be made for a maximum of two years, so if SLL JoongAng does not go public by March next year, it is expected to seek new investors.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 29th, SLL JoongAng and Praxis Capital decided to extend the listing deadline to March next year. This decision appears to be made in anticipation of the recovery of SLL JoongAng's performance to achieve the desired corporate value.
Founded in 1999, SLL JoongAng produces content for sale to domestic and international broadcasters, online video services (OTT), and cinemas. Recent popular productions include the drama "The Youngest Son of a Conglomerate," Netflix's "Culinary Class Wars," and the "The Outlaws" film series.
SLL JoongAng posted 7.5 billion won in operating profit last year, successfully turning to profit, but returned to a loss in the first quarter of this year. While it recorded 139.7 billion won in revenue, it saw an operating loss of 4.5 billion won. Choi Min-ha, a researcher at Samsung Securities, analyzed that this was due to "a decrease in the airing frequency on the JTBC channel and a decline in global OTT exclusive sales."
At the end of March 2021, SLL JoongAng (then JTBC Studio) raised pre-IPO investment. Praxis Capital and Tencent acquired the company's convertible preferred shares (CPS) for 300 billion won and 100 billion won, respectively. In this process, SLL JoongAng's corporate value was estimated at approximately 1.2 trillion won.
SLL JoongAng promised to qualify for a listing (Q-IPO) by March 2024 and also included provisions to extend the deadline twice by one year each (3+1+1). If it fails to go public within the deadline, investors can notify the company of their intention to recoup their investment, and the company must propose a recoupment plan within 25 business days and implement it within three months.
SLL JoongAng selected NH Investment & Securities as the listing coordinator early last year, but there has been no movement toward going public. In the worst case, there are concerns that SLL JoongAng may need to find new financial investors (FI) because it would be difficult to repay an investment that amounts to 400 billion won. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, SLL JoongAng's liquid assets totaled only 243.8 billion won.
SLL JoongAng is the core company of the comprehensive media group JoongAng Group, engaged in media and entertainment content production and distribution. The largest shareholder is the media and content company Contentree JoongAng (with a shareholding of 53.82%). Hong Jeong-do, vice chairman of JoongAng Holdings (4%), JTBC (2.84%), JoongAng Holdings (1.8%), and Hong Jeong-in, CEO of Contentree JoongAng (1.18%), are also major shareholders.