SEOUL, Dec 7 Reuters -- South Korea's LG Energy Solution LGES is likely to raise up to 12.8 trillion won $10.87 billion in what could be the country's biggest initial public offering, as the battery maker seeks funds to expand and meet demand for EV batteries.
This would be South Korea's largest listing, beating Samsung Life Insurance's 4.9 trillion won IPO in 2010 at the low end of the range.
LGES is LG Chem Ltd's wholly owned battery subsidiary, which supplies Tesla Inc, General Motor Co and Hyundai Motor Co amongst others.
It expects to offer 34 million new shares in an indicative range of 257,000 won -- 300,000 won per share, it said in a regulatory filing.
According to a separate filing, LG Chem plans to offer 8.5 million existing shares in the same price range.
The company said that LGES' valuation would be as much as 70.2 trillion won in this range.
The proposed deal will be led by Morgan Stanley and KB Securities. The bookrunners include Bank of America, Citigroup, Daishin Securities, Goldman Sachs and Shinhan Investment Corp.
The pricing is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks, with a listing in Seoul expected in late January.
South Korea is seeing its hottest IPO market this year. More than 20 companies have gone public in the country's main KOSPI market, raising more than 17 trillion won, beating the 8.8 trillion won raised in all of 2010, the previous biggest year on record, according to the Korea Exchange.
According to Deloitte, global EV sales, estimated at 2.5 million vehicles in 2020, are expected to grow more than 12 fold to 31.1 million by 2030 and account for nearly a third of new vehicle sales.