E-commerce from South Korea, Coupang has conducted an initial public offering (IPO) on the Wall Street exchange of United States (US). Through this IPO, Coupang managed to raise $4.6 billion in funds.
Quoted from CNBC, Friday (12/3/2021) The IPO of Coupang is the largest in the US this year. Coupang sold 130 million shares at a price of US $ 35 over its target range of US $ 32 to US $ 34.
Thanks to its soaring debut on Wall Street, the stock later pared that gain and closed up nearly 41% at US $ 49.25 per share. to give Coupang a market capitalization of US $ 84.5 billion.
Coupang Gets Support from Big Investors
The South Korean e-commerce giant received early support from several well-known investors, namely Stanley Druckenmiller and Bill Ackman.
Druckenmiller himself is the CEO of the Duquesne Family Office, he has long been a pre-IPO investor in Coupang. Ackman, the billionaire who runs the hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, invests privately in Coupang.
Apart from the two people, Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group is also an investor in Coupang. SoftBank owns about a third of Coupang, which has invested billions of dollars into the company.
Coupang was founded in 2010 by Bom Kim, who is currently the CEO. According to investment partner at SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Lydia Jett, Kim is a prominent founder worth supporting.
“When I met Bom and spent three days in Seoul with her. I was blown away by the level of customer understanding and customer centricity of her company, an ongoing innovation,” said Jett.
“It is clear to me that this company is doing something very different from its competitors. And customers are responding,” he added.
Coupang’s total revenue was US $ 12 billion in 2020, up nearly 91% from the previous year. This recorded an operating loss of US $ 527.7 million in 2020. The loss was recorded down 18% from 2019 and down almost 50% from 2018.
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