이 기사는 2021년 08월 13일 07:56 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s online grocery delivery platform Kurly has temporarily halted a process to select its initial public offering (IPO) underwriters amid a series of IPO plans announced by major ecommerce companies.

Kurly originally planned to complete its selection process earlier this month, but the firm had to push back the schedule after SSG.com has unexpectedly accelerated its IPO process.

Brokerage firms, which have to select either SSG.com or Kurly to avoid conflicts of interest, are putting more weight on the IPO of SSG.com. The ecommerce platform is part of Shinsegae Group, which recently acquired eBay Korea.

Market insiders said interests in Kurly’s listing have weakened due to its rivals’ IPO plans. In order to survive in the overnight delivery service market, Kurly needs to differentiate itself from rivals and strengthen its delivery capabilities, market watchers said.

It also needs to continuously discover premium private brand products as many of its customers value quality of products over price.

The South Korean unicorn startup announced its IPO plan on the local bourse shortly after it raised 225.4 billion won ($194 million) in a series F funding round which valued the company at 2.5 trillion won.

But, as its competitor SSG.com seeks to go public next year, ahead of its original timeline of 2023, Kurly has postponed the process to hire its underwriter, which was supposed to be completed earlier this month.

Only KB Securities responded to Kurly’s request for proposal, which was sent to major brokerage firms at home and abroad.

Any brokerage firm that is hired by Kurly is not allowed to participate in the IPO of SSG.com due to conflicts of interest. NH Investment & Securities and Korea Investment & Securities, which manage the listing of Oasis, didn’t respond to Kurly’s request for the underwriting bidding either.

Kurly plans to finalize the bidding schedule depending on the market conditions. “Oasis and SSG.com expedite their IPOs, but situations are highly likely to change during the process to hire underwriters,” said an official Kurly. He added that the company plans to hold a bidding process again depending on the situations as it is not in a hurry.

Kurly needs to continue to expand cold storage facilities across the country in order to accelerate revenue growth and maintain service quality at the same time. Kurly’s distribution center in Gimpo started operations in March, expanding its overnight delivery service beyond the Seoul metropolitan area to Chungcheong Province. It recently introduced its overnight delivery service in Daegu and will expand it to major cities including Gwangju, Ulsan and Busan later this year. (Reporting by Eun Kim)