KB Securities is strengthening its competitiveness in the initial public offering (IPO) market based on a steady track record and a solid bookrunner pipeline. It is pursuing an investment banking (IB) strategy that participates across corporations' growth by discovering high-quality unlisted companies and successfully taking them public.
According to the financial investment industry on the 28th, KB Securities topped the league table in 2022 by leading six IPOs totaling 2.9924 trillion won, followed by first place for two straight years with 12 deals worth 676.9 billion won in 2024 and 13 deals worth 845.1 billion won in 2025. In 2023, it ranked fifth with 11 deals worth 340.5 billion won, and as of the end of the first half of this year, it ranks third with six deals worth 227.7 billion won.
KB Securities is also building a thick pipeline of underwriting mandates to back its IPO results. It secured 33 mandates last year, including Upstage and SBSunbo, and as of the end of July this year, it signed a total of 33 underwriting contracts, including PRNDCompany (Hey Dealer), HD Hyundai Robotics, Musinsa and Liner.
This month, it signed a co-lead underwriting contract with Travel Wallet and has been selected as the listing underwriter for Rebellions, an artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor design company, with a contract in preparation.
KB Securities said it is collaborating in particular with growth companies that attract strong market attention. With many corporations in growth sectors such as AI, platforms and robots, KB Securities' IPO portfolio is diversifying.
In the second half of this year, the underwriter pipeline secured so far is expected to enter the IPO process in earnest.
As of the second half, KB Securities is preparing to file preliminary listing reviews for a total of 15 companies, including Musinsa, Rebellions, Upstage, Megazone Cloud, Everspin, AIO, and Mothers Pharmaceutical. Corporations at the underwriting-contract stage are expected to file for preliminary review in sequence and move to list.
In addition, KB Securities is achieving significant results amid fierce competition with major securities firms. Representative cases are Liner and VesselAI.
For the selection of the IPO lead underwriter for AI search startup Liner, major securities firms including KB Securities, Mirae Asset Securities(006800), NH Investment & Securities and Daishin Securities participated, and KB Securities was chosen as the final lead underwriter. In the competition to select the underwriter for AI infrastructure company VesselAI, it beat Mirae Asset Securities and Shinhan Investment & Securities.
For the selection of the underwriter for Travel Wallet, NH Investment & Securities(005940), Shinhan Investment & Securities and Kyobo Securities participated. In the case of Travel Wallet, KB Securities plans to pursue the IPO under a joint lead arrangement with NH Investment & Securities.
KB Securities said that, in addition to HD Hyundai Robotics this year, it has been awarded many underwriting mandates from corporations including LK Celltech, Maihub, Tesollo, Romansys, GMR, IFA, Dain Medical Group and Korens.
In the IPO market, qualitative performance as well as quantitative performance is improving. KB Securities is strengthening a structure that builds cooperative relationships with corporations from the venture and growth investment stages and then links to follow-on investments, corporate finance and IPOs. As a result, there are successive cases of combining investment and corporate finance functions by also acting as IPO underwriter for companies invested in through the new technology business finance department.
In the case of Recens Medical, since KB Securities made its first investment in 2019, it has supported follow-on investments and overseas expansion, and, in coordination with the ECM department, also served as a joint IPO underwriter. It is a case of linking financial solutions from the early growth stage of a corporation to its market debut.
A KB Securities official said, "Rather than simply increasing the number of mandates, we plan to provide differentiated IPO solutions to clients by discovering high-quality corporations with growth potential and competitiveness and focusing on linking them to successful listings."