Elice, an artificial intelligence infrastructure company, plunged more than 30% in early trading on its KOSDAQ debut.
As of 9:30 a.m. on the 20th, the stock was trading at 63,000 won, down 27,500 won, or 30.39%, from its initial public offering price of 90,500 won, according to the Korea Exchange. The shares extended losses during the session to as low as 61,000 won. The company's market capitalization, valued at about 1 trillion won ($700 million) based on the offering price, fell to around 700 billion won on the slide.
Elice had drawn 2,367 domestic and foreign institutions to its book-building, with the offering 388.84 times subscribed. The company set the offering price at 90,500 won, the top of its indicative range of 70,400 won to 90,500 won. A retail subscription held on the 7th and 8th of this month was 408.26 times subscribed and attracted more than 10 trillion won in deposits. The offering raised about 201.1 billion won, and the company's pre-listing market value was estimated at 1.0054 trillion won.
Founded in 2015, Elice started with an AI education platform and has since expanded into cloud services and data centers built on graphics processing units, as well as AI transformation solutions for individual industries. On a consolidated basis, it posted revenue of 39.5 billion won and operating profit of 5.2 billion won last year, and revenue of 34.4 billion won and operating profit of 10.3 billion won in the first half of this year. The company plans to use the proceeds to build AI data centers and expand overseas operations in markets including the United States, Japan and Singapore.
