SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean financial technology firm Kakao Pay Corp said on Friday it had decided to push back its planned initial public offering, worth as much as 1.5 trillion won ($1.28 billion), to November from October.
The news comes a day before the revised Financial Consumer Protection Act fully goes into effect, requiring financial services platform apps like Kakao Pay to halt financial product comparison and recommendation services unless they register with the regulator or receive a licence or permission.
Kakao Pay said it now aims to list on Nov 3, having announced in August it was seeking to do so on Oct. 14.
The company, 55%-owned by South Korea’s top mobile messaging service company Kakao Corp and 45% by Ant Group’s Alipay, provides financial services including money transfers, savings accounts and asset management.
“We updated our prospectus with investment risks, reflecting the revised Financial Consumer Protection Act, to help investors fully understand the reorganization of our services,” Kakao Pay said in a statement.
In the filing it estimated its value at 11.7 trillion won. In August, it cut the indicative per share price range for the offering, which comprises 17 million new shares, to 60,000-90,000 won from 63,000-96,000.
The main underwriters for the deal are Samsung Securities, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs.
($1 = 1,175.7300 won)
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jan Harvey)
