[Gettyimages Bank]
Hanwha Systems said Monday that it would set the price of its initial public offering through demand forecasts for institutional investors by October 30 and receive applications from general investors on November 4 and 5. Hanwha Aerospace, an aerospace industrial company, is the largest shareholder with a 52.91 percent stake.
"Through our KOSPI listing, we will establish ourselves as a leading global company in the defense industry and ICT," Hanwha Systems CEO Kim Yeon-chul told reporters. The total number of offerings is 32,861,424 shares with a public offering price ranging from 12,250 won ($10.45) to 14,000 won. Up to 460 billion won will be offered and market capitalization stands at 1.54 trillion won based on the upper end.
Hanwha Systems, a cash cow of South Korea’s eighth-largest conglomerate Hanwha Group, is divided into defense and ICT sectors. In 2018, the company posted 44.8 billion won in operating profit on sales of 1.13 trillion won on a consolidated basis.
Hanwha Systems vowed to develop defense ICT convergence synergies in line with the establishment of a network-oriented security environment. In July, the company announced a $25 million equity investment in K4 Aeronautics, a U.S. personal air vehicle developer, to participate in the development of personal air vehicles targeting the American market.
PAVs are emerging as a future system of travel to avoid traffic jams on urban roads as the doorstep-to-doorstep average speed for cars is predicted to degrade further. An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft which makes short flights on demand. Startups as well as global giants such as Airbus, Boeing and Uber are vying to develop PAVs and autonomous air taxis.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
