Market Kurly and Oasis recruit same underwriters for their IPOs

South Korea’s early morning grocery delivery rivals – Market Kurly and Oasis Market – not just resemble in business feature but also in their choice for institutions to lead manage their IPOs.

Market Kurly operator Kurly Inc. said last Friday that it named NH Investment & Securities, Korea Investment & Securities and JP Morgan as its underwriting team for its listing on the Kospi market. NH Investment and Korea Investment also are responsible for the IPO of Oasis Market owned by Kosdaq-listed Gaeasoft.

The move has attracted interest from industry watchers because selecting the same underwriters is the last thing that companies in rivalry want to do for their IPO to avoid conflicts of interest and possible information leakage. For instance, LG Energy Solution which is preparing to go public early next year shunned Mirae Asset and JP Morgan who had led IPO of SK IE Technology when it recruited underwriters in January.

The underwriters are expected to arrange IPOs in differing order as not to lessen their appeal.

Kurly said it will speed up its IPO procedures to go public within the first half of 2022. It plans to apply for a pre-IPO review with Korea Exchange (KRX) by the end of the year. It will benefit from the eased IPO rules revised since April to make it easier for a unicorn startup valued at 1 trillion won ($850.3 million) or more to join Kospi.

As Korea’s major e-commerce players have all been preparing for a market debut in 2022, the competition in the online shopping market is expected to get much fiercer. Shinsegae Group’s e-commerce unit SSG.com last week named Mirae Asset Securities and Citigroup Global Markets Korea as its lead IPO underwriters, with Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan joining as a syndicate.

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