Doosan Robotics shares debut at double IPO price

Shares of Doosan Robotics, South Korea’s largest collaborative robot producer under the conglomerate Doosan Group, nearly doubled on Thursday, as the company made its stock market debut.

Doosan Robotics closed at 51,400 won ($38.03) per share on Korea's main bourse Kospi, up 97.69 percent from its initial public offering price of 26,000 won. Its market capitalization stood at 3.33 trillion won, ranking in the top 100 stocks on Kospi.

Its shares opened at 59,100 won, 127.3 percent higher than the IPO price. The share price surged earlier in the day, peaking to 67,600 won. But it soon fell to the low of 46,450 won. Later in the day, it climbed back to the early 50,000-won band.

During the first session, the quotation for newly issued stock prices can move within a range of 60 to 400 percent of the IPO price. For Doosan Robotics, the price limit was between 15,600 won and 104,000 won.

Though it failed to reach the upper price limit of 400 percent, its share price doubled at debut, making the market cap surpass 3 trillion won, higher that of Rainbow Robotics at 2.73 trillion won, another major local player in the robot industry. Rainbow Robotics is listed on Kosdaq, Korea’s secondary bourse.

"Doosan Robotics will become an integrated solution business for collaborative robots, building an ecosystem through a software platform and internalization of technologies such as artificial intelligence and autonomous mobile robots," Park In-won, co-CEO of the firm, said at an event held to celebrate the IPO at the Korea Exchange’s headquarters in Seoul, Thursday.

Doosan Robotics’ IPO was a highly anticipated event in the lukewarm local stock market, which has not been seeing many exciting market debuts this year.

A total of 1,920 institutional investors participated in the book building for the robotics firm, including state funds such as Norway’s sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management and Singaporean sovereign fund GIC, along with big players in the capital market BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, according to reports.

The IPO was met with fervor from retail investors as well, drawing in 33.1 trillion won in deposits for the subscription. It was the first time in nearly 20 months for IPO deposits to surpass 33 trillion won since LG Energy Solution garnered more than 100 trillion won for its debut in January 2022.

Founded in 2015, Doosan Robotics has the largest lineup of collaborative robots in Korea, with more than 10 models on the market. It is a major player in the robotics industry here.

Despite the slow IPO scene, more firms are to make their market debut this year, including battery material supplier EcoPro Materials and public company Seoul Guarantee Insurance.