Kosem Sets IPO Price at 16,000 Won... "Record High Demand Forecast Competition Rate"

Kosem, a specialized company in scanning electron microscopes (SEM), has finalized its offering price at 16,000 KRW, exceeding the upper limit of the desired offering price band (12,000 KRW to 14,000 KRW).

On the 6th, Kosem announced that the demand forecast conducted for institutional investors from the 29th of last month to the 2nd of this month attracted a total of 2,022 domestic and international companies, recording a high competition rate of 1,267.6 to 1. This is the highest record this year. The final offering price was set at 16,000 KRW, with a total offering amount of 9.6 billion KRW and a market capitalization based on the offering price of approximately 90.6 billion KRW.

All institutions participating in Kosem’s demand forecast placed orders above the upper limit. Among them, more than 99.7% offered prices exceeding the upper limit of the desired offering price band (including institutions that did not specify a price).

A representative from Kiwoom Securities, the lead underwriter, stated, “While the recent poor performance of technology-special listing companies has been controversial, Kosem’s proven technology and performance growth worked positively. Especially, Kosem’s main product, the scanning electron microscope, is not limited to a specific field but can be applied to various industries using nanotechnology, reflecting the market’s expectations for future growth.”

Additionally, the Kiwoom Securities representative explained, “Although 99.1% of the requested quantities were offered at prices exceeding the confirmed offering price, reflecting the issuer’s intention to lower the entry barrier for general investors with a market-friendly offering price, the offering price was finalized at 16,000 KRW.”

Lee Junhee, CEO of Kosem, said, “We sincerely thank the investors who gave positive evaluations of Kosem’s technology and growth potential. Since we are realizing actual profits, not just possessing technology, we will continue to develop products and expand sales capabilities to build a company with long-term upward growth.”

Founded in 2007, Kosem is a specialized company developing scanning electron microscopes (SEM). It succeeded in developing the world’s first tabletop scanning electron microscope with 100,000x magnification and has since expanded its business areas to include ion millers (CP) and ion coaters (SPT-20) in addition to scanning electron microscopes.

Based on its outstanding technology and product capabilities, Kosem increased its customer base from only 48 in 2012 to about 210 last year. Despite pursuing a KOSDAQ listing through a technology-special listing method, it has maintained a profitable trend every year since 2012, showing stable growth. In 2022, it achieved annual sales of 12.5 billion KRW and operating profit of 1.8 billion KRW, and recorded cumulative sales of 8.9 billion KRW and operating profit of 0.5 billion KRW in the third quarter of last year.

Kosem plans to accelerate its approach to front industries such as secondary batteries, semiconductors, and displays based on its main products. The funds raised through the listing will be used for facility investment to expand production capacity and research and development.

Kosem will conduct a public offering subscription for general investors through Kiwoom Securities from the 13th to the 14th and is scheduled to be listed on KOSDAQ on the 23rd of this month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.