이 기사는 2022년 02월 09일 08:07 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s digital lender K bank has selected three investment banking firms, including NH Investment & Securities, as lead underwriters to handle its initial public offering (IPO), while Shinhan Investment was unexpectedly excluded from the deal.

K bank picked NH Investment & Securities, Citigroup Global Markets Korea Securities and JP Morgan as its lead underwriters and Samsung Securities as a co-manager on Friday.

The digital bank held a three-day presentation competition at the end of January, followed by a quick selection, which was made only two business days after the competition. K bank is speeding up the IPO process as it aims to go public in the second half.

Four top-ranked domestic securities firms – Mirae Asset Securities, Samsung Securities, NH Investment & Securities and Shinhan Investment – and foreign investment banks participated in the presentation competition.

NH Investment & Securities was widely expected to win the lead advisory role given that the brokerage firm is one of the major shareholders of K bank with a 4.84% stake.

Some market insiders said that the brokerage firm’s decision not to participate in K bank’s capital increase last year was to take a role in the digital lender’s IPO. NH Investment & Securities’ stake in the digital bank fell from 10% to less than 5%.

K bank’s corporate value is expected to reach about 10 trillion ($8.3 billion) after the listing. NH Investment & Securities has added another big deal in its track record, along with multiple weighty IPOs scheduled for this year, including Hyundai Oilbank, Kurly and Onestore.

Samsung Securities reportedly put efforts into the presentation competition to win a lead advisory role, although it ended up being a co-manager. The securities firm was selected as co-manager on the planned IPO of car-sharing company SoCar.

Shinhan Investment was considered one of the two strongest candidates alongside NH Investment & Securities, but was unexpectedly excluded from the roster.

Earlier this year, K bank’s parent KT Corp and Shinhan Bank agreed to buy 437.5 billion won worth of shares in each other’s companies. Shinhan Bank bought 5.46% of the telco from NTT Docomo to the second largest shareholder of KT, replacing NTT Docomo.

Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, which were also invited by K bank, reportedly didn’t participate in the presentation competition. An industry source said that Credit Suisse seems to be more interested in fintech startup Viva Republica’s IPO. (Reporting by Sang-won Lee)