Simpson Thacher represented the lead managers, Merrill Lynch and Korean securities companies, for FinanceAsia’s “Best Korea Deal” of 2007—Samsung Card’s US$620 million IPO.
Samsung Card IPO consisted of 6,000,000 common shares offered by the issuer and 6,000,000 common shares offered by the selling shareholders, including Samsung Electronics and Samsung Life Insurance, in a public offering in Korea concurrent with an offering to the international investors under Rule 144A and Regulation S under the Securities Act. As the first domestic IPO with an international tranche, the deal pioneered a new issuance model that allows Korean and foreign investors to buy into the same domestically-traded pool of common shares, marking it “an important development for corporate Korea”.
FinanceAsia is Asia’s leading financial publishing company covering Asia’s fast moving financial and capital markets. Each year, FinanceAsia announces the defining deals of 2007 from each country in Asia, which can be an equity offering, an M&A transaction or a bond. For the “Best Korea Deal”, FinanceAsia cited the “transformational impact that Samsung Card’s IPO will have on the country’s capital markets” as the decisive factor.
Samsung Card is a leading diversified consumer finance company in Korea, offering a broad range of financial products and services to individuals, as well as leasing services to individuals and corporate customers. As one of the most recognized credit card brands in Korea, Samsung Card has an extensive customer base of approximately 6.9 million effective cardholders, and is the largest non-bank-affiliated credit card franchise in Korea.
The Simpson Thacher team who contributed to the successful completion of this transaction include Youngjin Sohn, Kristina Kang and Woojae Kim in Hong Kong, and Ben Applestein (Tax), Brian Robbins, Jeanne Annarumma (ERISA) and Mark Lab (Blue Sky) in New York.