Will Yanolja attract investment from Carlyle?

Yanolja's logo

By Park Jae-hyuk

Attention is focusing on the Carlyle Group's possible investment in Yanolja, as the latter is said to be looking to attract additional foreign investment amid its ongoing efforts to proceeds with an initial public offering (IPO), according to media reports and industry sources, Thursday.

Sources said the nation's top travel and lodgings service platform provider has talked with several foreign private equity firms (PEFs) because it may still launch a pre-IPO, an attempt to raise funds in advance of a firm's listing on a stock exchange.

Yanolja is accelerating its efforts to go public at this moment, after hiring Mirae Asset Daewoo and Samsung Securities as underwriters last year. The company's listing is expected to take place during the second half of this year.

Carlyle is mentioned as one foreign firm that's considering investing in Yanolja before the IPO. The world's leading PEF has reportedly resumed talks with the Korean startup recently, a few months after it had suspended its investment plan, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the tourism industry particularly hard.

Industry insiders said Carlyle partially uses its funds to take part in pre-IPOs, although the company's main focus is buyouts.

A Yanolja spokeswoman declined to confirm this issue, saying the IPO underwriters are in charge of potential investments in the company.

Over the past few years, multiple foreign investors have shown an interest in the Korean startup.

In 2018, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), reportedly invited Yanolja and Bithumb to the KDB Next Round investor roadshow. This was interpreted as part of the global PEF's attempts to expand its investment in promising domestic startups.

Although Yanolja did not join hands with KKR at that time, it has been able to grow into a unicorn startup with a valuation over 1 trillion won ($919 million), thanks to Morgan Stanley, which helped the firm attract a combined $180 million in investments in 2019 from Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Booking Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed American travel service platform operator.

Yanolja has yet to select Morgan Stanley as an underwriter for its planned IPO, but the U.S. investment bank is highly expected to team up with the Korean firm sometime this year.

A Yanolja spokesman said there remained room for the company to select a single foreign brokerage as an additional IPO underwriter because it is doing business overseas.

If Morgan Stanley collaborates with Yanolja, the investment bank will likely entice more foreign investment, so that the Korean company's valuation could possibly reach 2 trillion won, the firm's desired level.