Coupang Aims to Raise $4 Billion in IPO

Coupang has filed an amended S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its initial public offering. The company intends to price its 120 million shares in the range of $32 to $34. At the maximum price, the entire offering is valued up to $4.08 billion. The company intends to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CPNG.

The underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs, Allen, JPMorgan, Citigroup, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, UBS Investment Bank, Mizuho and CLSA.

This is a South Korean e-commerce company that was founded in 2010. It is currently the second-largest online retailer in South Korea. At the end of December 2020, Coupang had over 100 fulfillment and logistics centers in over 30 cities, encompassing over 25 million square feet. Over 40,000 workers and thousands of delivery vehicles process, fulfill, and deliver millions of items daily.

The firm’s Rocket Delivery network provides the same-day or next-day delivery somewhat akin to Amazon. However, the company claims that 99.6% of its goods are delivered within 24 hours.

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Coupang remains a small percentage of the total retail, grocery, consumer foodservice and travel spend in the Korean market, which was $470 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow to $534 billion by 2024. The e-commerce segment of that total spend was $128 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow to $206 billion by 2024. Management believes that Coupang is in the early stages of broad customer adoption.

In terms of its finances, the company reported as follows:

In 2020, our total net revenues were $12.0 billion, up 90.8% from 2019, or 93.1% from 2019 on a constant currency basis. Our gross profit was $2.0 billion in 2020, up 92.3% from 2019. Our operating loss was $(0.5) billion in 2020, down from $(0.6) billion in 2019, a decrease of $0.1 billion. Operating margin improved to (4.4)% in 2020, an increase of 590 basis points from 2019. Our cash provided by (used in) operating activities improved to $0.3 billion in 2020 from $(0.3) billion in 2019, an improvement of $0.6 billion, and our Free Cash Flow improved to $(0.2) billion in 2020 from $(0.5) billion in 2019, an improvement of $0.3 billion.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures.

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