South Korea's Kakao Bank shares debut at 38% above IPO price (updated)

KakaoBank

06/08/2021 01:26

* Kakao Bank soars as much as 74% above IPO price
    * Kakao Bank is first S.Korean digital bank to list
    * Chat app operator Kakao Corp holds 27.3% stake 

 (Adds background)
    By Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang
    SEOUL, Aug 6 (Reuters) - South Korea's Kakao Bank Corp
 323410.KS  saw its stock debut on Friday at 38% above its
initial public offering (IPO) price, amid growth expectations
for the digital bank's planned mobile mortgage business and
other offerings.
    The digital bank began trading on Friday at 53,700 won per
share compared to its IPO price of 39,000 won, then soared
shortly after to as much as 74% above the IPO price. This
compared with a 0.2% rise of the KOSPI benchmark index  .KS11 . 
    Its largest shareholder is Kakao Corp  035720.KS , operator
of South Korea's dominant chat app, with a 27.3% stake. 
    Kakao Bank, South Korea's first digital bank to go public,
became profitable in 2019 after less than two years in operation
and has 13.35 million monthly active users (MAUs), it said last
month.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2MJ0BQ

 (Reporting by Joyce Lee, Jihoon Lee and Heekyong Yang; Editing
by Christopher Cushing and Sonali Paul)
 ((Heekyong.Yang@thomsonreuters.com;))