Life Insurance

Samsung Life Rises After Record Initial Share Sale

(Bloomberg) — Samsung Life Insurance Co. rose on its first day of trading in Seoul after raising $4.3 billion in South Korea’s biggest initial public offering.

Shares of the nation’s largest life insurer were the most active by value on the Korea Exchange today and climbed 3.6 percent from their IPO price to 114,000 won at the close. The benchmark Kospi stock index fell 0.4 percent.

Record-low interest rates and a flagging property market are attracting investors to Korean stock sales, even as a rout in global equities prompted at least 11 companies worldwide to withdraw or delay IPOs last week. Korean companies have raised almost 8.1 trillion won in first-time sales in 2010, more than any full year since Bloomberg began compiling the data in 1999.

“For investors in Korean stocks, it’s another blue-chip company with a steady earnings outlook that’s the strongest competitor in its field,” said Kim Young Joon, a fund manager at NH-CA Asset Management in Seoul, which manages the equivalent to $9.7 billion in assets, including Samsung Life shares. “Today’s gain isn’t big because the offer price wasn’t cheap and there’s still uncertainty over debt problems in Europe, prompting some investors to cash-in their stock.”

The company, controlled by Samsung Group, sold 44.4 million shares at 110,000 won apiece. The price was set near the top of a marketed range in an offer that attracted orders for 40.6 times the shares allocated to individual investors.

Read full story