South Korea-based ecommerce company Coupang raises USD 4.2 bln IPO

According to Fashion United, the company, backed by Japan’s SoftBank, has shaken up the South Korean retail sector since launching in 2010 with a platform guaranteeing same-day delivery, which helped turn it into the tech-savvy nation’s online market leader. In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission submitted recently, Coupang stated it had sold 120 million shares in the IPO at USD 35 apiece – above its initial target range of USD 27-30 – giving it a market value of USD 60 billion.

Furthermore, SoftBank, Coupang’s biggest shareholder, invested USD 1 billion in the company in 2015, in a deal that valued it at USD 5 billion. That was followed three years later by another USD 2 billion funding from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which reported that the company was worth USD  9 billion.

However, Coupang's combined net losses for the fiscal years from 2018 to 2020 came in at more than USD 2.2 billion, thus it may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve or maintain profitability in future periods., Fashion United reported.