이 기사는 2021년 03월 23일 08:06 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s GP Club, an operator of cosmetic brand JM Solution, will file for a preliminary review next month for its planned initial public offering (IPO) this year.

GP Club plans to submit its audited financial report later this month and apply for a preliminary review next month for its IPO on the junior Kosdaq market, industry sources said on Friday. The company has hired Samjong KPMG as its auditor. NH Investment & Securities is leading the listing, with Samsung Securities and Korea Investment Securities also acting as bookrunners.

Founded in 2003, GP Club transformed itself from a game distributor into a cosmetics company by launching its beauty brand JM Solution in 2016. It has sold a variety of skincare products in partnership with the nation’s leading original equipment manufacturing companies. It also launched lifestyle brand Gangbly Life in 2018.

The big success of its facial masks in the Chinese e-commerce market has driven its dramatic growth. GP Club recorded revenue of over 500 billion won ($442 million) and an operating income of more than 200 billion won in 2018, three years after the launch of JM Solution.

GP Club raised 75 billion won from Goldman Sachs in October 2018 in a deal that valued the company at around 1.5 trillion won, and became the country's ninth unicorn, a private company with a valuation $1 billion, in June 2019.

GP Club’s IPO would mark the first listing by a cosmetic company in four years. South Korean cosmetic companies, which are highly dependent on the Chinese market, were hit hard by Beijing’s retaliatory measures against Seoul’s deployment of U.S. missile defense system THAAD in 2017. (Reporting by Su-jeong Kim)