SK ecoplant will acquire the convertible preferred shares (CPS) held by financial investors (FI) as treasury stock, wrapping up the process of returning the pre-IPO funds raised in 2022.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 11th, SK ecoplant decided to acquire 1,327,868 CPS shares held by FI for 650 billion won. The scheduled acquisition date is the 30th.
This transaction is a measure to return the funds of the FIs that participated in the 2022 pre-IPO. SK Group has been pushing a plan to split the acquisition of common shares and convertible preferred shares (CPS) that the FIs acquired at the time.
Earlier, domestic private equity fund (PEF) managers such as Eum Private Equity, Q Capital Partners, Premier Partners, and KY PE acquired CPS worth 600 billion won and existing shares worth 200 billion won during SK ecoplant's 2022 pre-IPO.
At the time, SK ecoplant, while attracting pre-IPO investment, promised to list by July this year. However, the chances of passing the listing review diminished due to accounting treatment issues, and the government's tougher stance on dual-listing regulations added to the difficulties in pushing the IPO.
Accordingly, SK Co. in April bought 198.5 billion won worth of common shares and 199.9 billion won worth of CPS held by FIs. If SK ecoplant acquires the remaining 650 billion won in CPS this time, the process of recovering the FI funds will be completed.
The industry expects this transaction to ease the future listing burden and simplify the capital structure. That is because it removes the dividend burden on CPS and potential conversion volume while also improving financial stability. The company also cited easing future dividend burdens and enhancing shareholder value as reasons behind repaying the CPS at the time.
SK ecoplant, after reshaping its business portfolio around semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, is focusing on improving profitability. The company plans to fund this CPS acquisition with its own cash without separate external borrowing.