Battery giant LG Energy attracts £59bn in IPO bids as it looks to triple capacity

South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution’s $10.7bn (£7.9bn) initial public offering (IPO) has received bids worth around $80bn (£59bn) from institutional investors, two insiders have revealed.

The book for the offering, which is the largest ever in South Korea, will close tomorrow with deal pricing set for Friday.

“We are getting the sense that demand has been good, but we cannot confirm or comment on the specific figures,” a spokesman for LG Energy said in a statement.

Potential investors were told that there was no price sensitivity in the order book, which was already multiple times oversubscribed, a third source told Reuters.

At $80bn, demand is about 13 times more than the $6bn (£4.4bn) on offer to institutions, according to the company’s regulatory filings for the IPO.

LGES is LG Chem’s wholly owned battery subsidiary and supplies electric vehicle (EV) batteries to Tesla and General Motors among others: making it the world’s second-largest electric vehicle battery maker,

The IPO could take the company’s value to as much as 70.2 trillion won (£43 billion), which would make it South Korea’s third-biggest listed company after Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Reuters reported in December it was likely LGES would price its shares at the top of the range.

The price range was set at 257,000 won (158.16p) to 300,000 won (184.63p) apiece when the deal was launched last week.