이 기사는 2021년 07월 28일 07시49분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Employees of South Korea’s internet-only bank KakaoBank have actively obtained shares the bank set aside for its employees as its initial public offering (IPO) date approaches.

According to KakaoBank and underwriters, 97.4% of employees subscribed shares allotted to its employees on July 26 alone.

The bank allotted more than 13 million shares, or 20% of the total shares offered in the IPO, to its employees based on local capital market regulations. The employee portion is worth more than 510 billion won ($441 million) based on the IPO price of 39,000 won.

Shares worth 497.2 billion won were subscribed by employees, with the employee portion undersubscribed by 340,000 shares, or 13.3 billion won.

KakaoBank has allowed both full-time and contract employees to buy shares reserved for its staff. The bank has a total of 1,014 employees.

An average subscription amount per person is a little more than 490 million won. Underwriters reportedly arranged loans via financial institutions including Korea Securities Finance Corp.

Among mega IPOs carried out this year, employee subscription rates of deals that allocated around 500 million won to each employee were close to 100%. SK Bioscience and SD Biosensor’s employee portion were subscribed 98% and 100%, respectively.

Unsubscribed shares in the employee portion are highly likely to be allotted to individual investors.

On Monday, the first day of subscription, retail investors made total 12.05 trillion won deposits at four brokerage firms KB Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, Hana Financial Investment, and Hyundai Motor Securities, which represented an oversubscription rate of 37.8 to 1.

Previously, SK Bioscience garnered deposits worth 14.1 trillion won, with an oversubscription rate of of 76 to 1 on the first subscription day. SK IE Technology received deposits worth 22.1 trillion won, with an oversubscription rate of of 78.93 to 1.

The competitin to subscribe KakaoBank IPO shares is expected to be fiercer on the last day as, unlike previous deals, investors are not allowed to make subscription bids at more than one brokerage firm. (Reporting by Seok-cheol Choi)