SOUTH KOREA is set for the busiest year ever for new share sales as companies ranging from a digital bank, game developer to an electric car battery maker rush to take advantage of robust retail demand, bankers and analysts said.

Its initial public offering (IPO) market could raise up to 20 trillion won (US$18.40 billion), a record and about four times above 2020 levels, led by firms providing products that are more in demand from people stuck indoors due to the pandemic, analysts said.

Also, a move by the country’s financial regulator to increase the allocation of IPO shares to retail customers this year will drive up investment, they added.

The projection comes against a recent rally in the main KOSPI index to above 3,000 for the first time, with investors looking towards a broad recovery in exports beyond South Korea’s tech titans.

This is “shaping up to look like it could be a record year,” said David Chung, head of Korea investment banking at Goldman Sachs. “The majority of big mandates and IPO themes are around the technology sector.”

That includes companies that were offline but now, amid the health crisis, have built up a significant online presence, Chung added. “That is where the growth is.”

Deals in the pipeline include a potential 4.6 trillion won float from KakaoBank, which has benefited from an inflow of customers from South Korea’s dominant chat app operator Kakao Corp. Kakao has a 32 percent stake in KakaoBank.

KakaoBank has picked advisers but not decided when it will list, a spokesman said.

An estimated 9-trillion-won share sale by Tesla supplier LG Chem’s electric car battery unit is also in the pipeline, according to an analyst.

The IPO size or timing has not been decided yet, an LG Energy Solution official said.

South Korean companies raised about 4.7 trillion won via initial public offerings in 2020, Korea Exchange data shows, surpassing the past two years, but behind an all-time high of about 10 trillion won reached in 2010.(SD-Agencies)