Samsung BioLogics Co. is expected to make a blockbuster debut on the main Seoul bourse on Nov. 10 with its shares priced at 136,000 won apiece ($119), the top end of the price band in a record overwhelming book-building

As many as 850 institutional players made bids totaling 380 trillion won, swelling over shares reserved for institutions by 281 times and 169 times the total issues available for initial public offering (IPO).

Local institutions rushed to book-building scene upon hearing over 17 trillion won bids came from offshore investors.

"From the book-building response, Samsung BioLogics would be the most successful IPO not just for this year, but in the market history,” said an investment bank official.

The biopharmaceutical arm of Samsung Group out to the run the world’s largest out-licensing manufacturing base in Korea will command market capitalization of near 9 trillion won upon listing, close to the 29th biggest stock S-Oil Corp.

Samsung BioLogics will offer a total of 16,541,302 shares - 11,027,558 in new shares and 5,513,744 in existing shares. The entire IPO is valued at 2.25 trillion won and Samsung BioLogics shares will be publicly traded from Nov. 10 after the IPO shares become available for public subscription on Nov. 2-3.

“Samsung BioLogics has drawn a lot of attention from index funds and other investment funds around the globe on expectations that the company will be positioned as Korea’s leading biotech stock along with Celltrion. ‘Samsung premium’ was also a significant factor to the evaluation as Samsung focuses its resources on healthcare, IT and other new business lines under the new leadership of Jay Y. Lee,” said Cho Yong-joon, head of Hana Financial Investment’s research center.

By Song Gwang-sup

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]