Kbank, an online South Korean lender, announced Friday that it had withdrawn its plan to make a public offering. The company cited insufficient demand and thus scuttled what would have been the largest offering of the year in South Korea.

Kbank announced in a regulatory filing that it had decided to pull the IPO because the demand forecast for institutional investors was not sufficient.

Kbank has withdrawn the IPO plan for a second time. In February 2023, it canceled an earlier plan citing a lack of investor confidence.

The filing stated that "we plan to improve public offering structures to pursue re-listing quickly, and will strive to ensure the proper value of the company is recognized during listing process."

If the price was at the highest end of the range, the IPO would have raised up to $984 billion won (717.54 million), which would have valued a company up to $5 trillion won.

It would have been the largest IPO in South Korea ever since LG Energy Solution, a battery manufacturer, raised 12.8 trillion won (9.38 billion dollars) in 2022. This would have been the biggest IPO of this year, HD Hyundai Marine Solution 742 billion won IPO from May.

Analysts report that Kbank's active monthly users are about 4 million. This is far below KakaoBank Corporation, which has over 15 million.

(source: Reuters)