이 기사는 2022년 05월 06일 08:13 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s SK shieldus has started a process to list its shares, with attention being paid to whether the company will be able to set its valuation at up to 3.5 trillion won ($2.7 billion).

The nation’s No. 2 security services provider plans to receive bids from institutional investors in its two-day bookbuildng process on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The company will sell some 27.1 million shares in its initial public offering (IPO), including about 14.45 million new shares and 12.64 million shares owned by its second largest shareholder Blue Security Investment. SK shieldus’ largest shareholder SK Square won’t sell its shares in the IPO.

SK shieldus plans to price its shares between 31,000 won and 38,800 won apiece with a discount rate of 16.88-33.59%.

The company selected S-1, Taiwan Secom, Ahnlab, and CyberOne as its comparable companies – the first two firms for its physical security business and the latter two for its cyber security business.

SK shieldus recorded earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 381.6 billion won in 2021. Its enterprise value (EV) comes in at 5.67 trillion won, calculated by multiplying its EBITDA by the four peer companies’ average EV/EBITDA of 14.86 times. SK shieldus’ market capitalization comes to 4.21 trillion won after subtracting its net borrowings of 1.45 trillion won from its EV. Its IPO valuation will likely come in at 2.8 trillion won to 3.5 trillion won after applying the discount rate.

SK shieldus used S-1 and Ahnlab’s revenue, EBITDA and market capitalization as criteria to determine its IPO valuation. Earnings of other peer companies including Cyberone, Taiwan Secom, ADT, Qualys and Alarm.com were used for reference only.

SK shieldus valued its physical security business at around 2 trillion won based on S-1’s earnings and market capitalization. S-1 recorded revenue of 2.31 trillion won in 2021, about 1.5 times SK shieldus’ 1.5 trillion won. The two companies generated EBITDA of around 350 billion won last year while SK shieldus’ EBITDA margin was 25%, much higher than S-1’s 15%.

Given its higher profitability, SK shieldus believed that it would be reasonable to set a corporate value equivalent to 70-75% of S-1's market capitalization. SK shieldus valued its physical security business at around 2 trillion won, about 75% of S-1’s market capitalization of 2.58 trillion won.

For its cyber security business, SK shieldus used Ahnlab’s earnings as comparison criteria. The cyber security business delivered 335 billion won in revenue in 2021, about 1.6 times Ahnlab’s 207 billion won. Its EBITDA margin is also about 10% points higher than Ahnlab’s 15.1%. This has made SK shieldus to value its cyber security business at 2 trillion won, nearly two times Ahnlab’s market capitalization of 938 billion won. (Reporting by Chul Kang)