이 기사는 2021년 05월 12일 07:49 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

Ecommerce firm TMON is trying to sell itself to retail conglomerates instead of going public as its bigger rival Coupang made successful U.S. market debut and the sale of eBay Korea attracts strong response from market players.

Last year, the country’s online shopping platform announced its plan to go public and picked Mirae Asset Daewoo to lead the process. Since then, the firm has tried to reduce its operating loss by pursuing a more profit-oriented strategy.

However, there has been self-reflection after its bigger rival Coupang made a successful U.S. public market debut recently. Coupang’s market capitalization hit $88 billion after its listing. Unlike TMON, Coupang’s strategy to expand its size despite hefty deficit has become the key to the market dominance of Coupang. Both TMON and Coupang have private equity funds as their largest shareholders.

Coupang's success made TMON hesitate to list in Korea as its position has become ambiguous amid Coupang’s dominance. TMON’s initial public offering (IPO) valuation was initially estimated to be more than 1 trillion won ($893 million), but it has been lowered, with some major firms including Coupang and Naver reorganizing the market. TMON has gross merchandise value (GMV) of only 3 trillion won, much smaller than Coupang and Naver’s 24 trillion.

TMON internally estimates its IPO valuation at around 700 billion won, which is considerably low given that its major shareholders seek at least 1 trillion won for their successful exits. TMON insiders believe that it doesn’t need to be so desperate about its listing as the valuation of about 1.5 trillion won was mentioned when it attempted to sell itself to Lotte Group in the past.

In the end, TMON has recently changed its plan to sell itself instead of going public. It is encouraging for TMON that the sale of eBay Korea has attracted strong response from major potential buyers including Emart, SK Telecom, Lotte Shopping, and MBK Partners.

TMON believes that these prospective buyers are keen to expand their ecommerce business and there is no alternative other than raising external funds. There are expectations that the prospective buyers who fell out of the eBay Korea deal are likely to turn their eyes to TMON.

EBay Korea’s valuation of 6 trillion won may push up the TMON’s valuation. TMON’s valuation and the possibility of striking the deal depend on how the eBay Korea sale develops.

With TMON placing more weight on the sale rather than the listing, it has been mulling to boost its GMV through external expansion instead of pursuing profit-oriented management.

“As we focus more on the growth than profitability, we are trying to make a variety of attempts,” said an official at TMON. “It is expected to be difficult to go public this year.” (Reporting by Eun-jin Choi)