IPO puts value of Samsung BioLogics at $8.2B

Samsung BioLogics has always said it will become the big deal in large-molecule manufacturing. Now it intends to back that boast up with an IPO that could value the company at more than $8 billion while filling its pockets with $2 billion in cash.

The South Korean company provided more details on a proposed IPO with a filing today indicating it would sell 16.5 million shares priced at up to 136,000 won ($122). That would allow it to raise $1.7 billion to $2 billion and value the company as high as $8.2 billion, The Wall Street Journal said today. Citing Dealogic, the newspaper reported that would make the IPO South Korea’s third-largest ever.  

Samsung Biologics is majority-owned by South Korea’s massive Samsung conglomerate, which created it as it saw its mobile phone business slow. When it sprang on the scene in 2011, CEO Tae Han Kim said it was in "Samsung’s DNA  to produce products at low prices" which he claimed would allow it to undercut the costs of any Western drugmaker. In a short while, the biopharmaceutical company and its separate biosimilars venture picked up an impressive list of partners, including Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche.

It also has backed that pledge up with big investments in manufacturing. Last year, it said it would spend 850 billion Korean won ($740 million) to build its third biologics manufacturing plant in South Korea. The 180,000-liter-capacity facility is being constructed alongside two other biologics manufacturing plants in Songdo and is slated to be finished in September 2018.

- read the WSJ story (sub. req.)
- here’s a Bloomberg piece

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