Shares started at IPO on Wall Street 81 percent above the issue price.
Successful stock market debut for the South Korean online retailer Coupang in New York: The opening price on Wall Street on Thursday was 61.50 dollars, more than 81 percent above the issue price. Coupang was valued at $ 109 billion and easily took the title of the largest IPO of the year in the United States from the dating app Bumble. In a 2018 financing round, Coupang's market value was estimated at $ 9 billion.
The mood for IPOs in the USA is currently better than it has been in two decades. Investors are mainly queuing up at technology companies that are benefiting from the corona pandemic. The Coupang, founded in 2010 by the Korean-American billionaire Bom Suk Kim, raised around $ 4.6 billion with the IPO. The Japanese technology investor Softbank, which holds around 35 percent of Coupang, is also benefiting from the successful debut. As the largest shareholder, Softbank had already accompanied the new issue of the Berlin online used car dealer Auto1 at the beginning of February.
Coupang, based in Seoul, is benefiting from the order boom in the corona crisis. Coupang has made a name for itself as one of the first companies to offer deliveries on the day the order was placed or on the following day. Company boss Kim wants to continue to concentrate on the success in his own country: “We are focusing on our home market.” Coupang will create 50,000 new jobs, but will also invest in infrastructure and technology. According to Euromonitor, the online retailer in South Korea already has a market share of almost 20 percent.
Last year, the company, which, like Amazon, sells everything from toys and food to electronics and also operates a food delivery service with Coupang Eats, doubled its sales to almost eleven billion dollars. Coupang Eats competes with Woowa, the South Korean food delivery service recently taken over by the Berlin DAX group Delivery Hero. Coupang's loss shrank 26 percent to around $ 568 million in 2020.
