By Joyce Lee and Jihoon Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s Kakao Pay Corp saw its shares double in value from their initial public offering (IPO) price on their trading debut on Wednesday.
Kakao Pay shares opened at 180,000 won on the KOSPI versus an IPO price of 90,000 won. The financial technology firm raised 1.5 trillion won ($1.27 billion) from its IPO. The IPO consisted of all newly-issued shares.
China’s Ant Group backed Kakao Pay plans to use 854 billion won ($724.66 million), or about 56% of the funds the company raised after costs, for mergers and acquisitions, it said in a regulatory filing.
Kakao Corp, operator of South Korea’s dominant chat app, remains a major shareholder with around a 48% stake.
Ant Group’s Alipay Singapore Holding has a 39% stake, and some of its shares can be traded without a lock-up period.
($1 = 1,178.8900 won)
(Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong)
