THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY, GLOBAL EDITION

South Korea’s e-commerce platform TMON Inc., majority-owned by KKR & Co. and Anchor Equity Partners, will likely receive 400 billion won ($337 million) in new investment from Seoul-based private equity firm PS Alliance.

The fresh funding is expected to pave the way for TMON to go public next year, which may lead to the top shareholders’ exit from the loss-making online retailer in over five years.

Both KKR and Anchor Equity are in final stages of talks with PS Alliance to sell 400 billion won worth of new bonds convertible into shares of TMON, short for Ticket Monster, according to investment banking sources on Sept. 2.

The fundraising is part of TMON’s efforts to become the country’s first listed e-commerce platform. In 2017, it withdrew its IPO plan due to poor financial conditions.

To revisit the initial public offering, TMON picked Mirae Asset Daewoo Securities Co. Ltd. as the IPO underwriter in April. Since then, it has been looking to raise up to 300 billion won through a rights offering, at the request of the Korea Stock Exchange, to bolster its negative capital base.

But the capital-raising plan has received a cool response from investors and large business groups who believed the country’s online commerce market has entered the mature stage after the ending of the so-called chicken games in the sector.

Given that concert and travel ticket sales account for 30% of its revenue, TMON has not benefited as much as its rivals from the non-contact business boom following the coronavirus outbreak.