Cybersecurity Leader SK Shieldus Gains IPO Wings

Cybersecurity experts at SK Shielders are responding to incidents such as breaches.

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SK Shieldus has officially entered the public offering process aiming for a listing on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) next month, drawing significant attention to its new growth businesses. This is because SK Shieldus is leveraging its competitiveness in the cybersecurity sector to expand new growth businesses in convergence security and safety & care areas, challenging the initial public offering (IPO) market.

According to SK Shieldus's 2021 business report on the 21st, the company's total sales last year reached KRW 1.5497 trillion on a consolidated basis, marking a 17% growth compared to the previous year. Notably, the sales proportion from new growth businesses such as cybersecurity, convergence security, and safety & care exceeded 40% of total sales. This is a 7% increase from the previous year. SK Shieldus aims to expand the sales proportion of new growth businesses to 60% by 2025.

SK Shieldus is an integrated corporation formed by the merger of SK Infosec, Korea's No.1 cybersecurity company, and ADT Caps, a physical security leader with over 50 years of history. Cybersecurity sales alone last year grew 18.2% year-on-year to KRW 335.1 billion. This includes achievements across all cybersecurity areas such as incident response, security monitoring, consulting, cloud security, and mobile solutions. The company employs about 1,500 cybersecurity experts, including 150 consultants, and has the largest domestic white-hacker group, ‘EQST (Equest),’ with around 100 members. It also became the first Asian company to join the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA), a prestigious international information security organization. A representative from SK Shieldus explained, "Cybersecurity business is expected to become more active with responses to globally threatening ransomware and the rapidly emerging metaverse."

The most promising area for business expansion is the safety & care sector. SK Shieldus has expanded its business into robotics following smart home safety, unmanned store solutions, unmanned parking, and senior care. Last month, it accelerated its entry into the unmanned market by investing KRW 3 billion in AI beauty solution startup Lululab.

With these new growth businesses as its driving force, market expectations for SK Shieldus's IPO are high. SK Shieldus plans to conduct a demand forecast targeting domestic institutional investors next month to finalize the public offering price, followed by a subscription for general investors. Based on the desired public offering price, the expected market capitalization ranges from a minimum of KRW 2.8005 trillion to a maximum of KRW 3.5052 trillion.

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