L&P Cosmetic, one of Korea’s top beauty product manufacturers, will decide whether to revive its efforts for an initial public offering (IPO) around the end of 2025, nearly a decade after halting its previous plan due to the unexpected “China shock,” which was sparked by the proposed deployment of an American anti-missile system in Korea, according to its Chairman Kwon Oh-sub.
In 2016, the company was poised to go public due to its thriving mask pack business and impressive corporate earnings. However, it ultimately abandoned the plan as diplomatic relations between Korea and China deteriorated sharply over a political issue. At that time, Asia’s largest economy threatened retaliatory measures against Korean products, resulting in the delay of L&P Cosmetic’s IPO plan.
“We will confirm whether to go public sometime around the end of next year, and my thought is it is feasible in the near future, as we do 커뮤니티 not have a high debt ratio,” Kwon said during an interview with The Korea Times at the firm’s headquarters in Seoul, July 2.
L&P Cosmetic is best-known for its flagship high-end mask pack brand, Mediheal. Manyo Factory, a skin care cosmetics brand of L&P Cosmetic, also made headlines last year after going public on the secondary Kosdaq market.
“We expect to boost employee morale further after a possibly successful listing of L&P Cosmetic,” Kwon said.
“One of the key purposes of the listing is to give more hope to our staff.”
L&P Cosmetic’s sales reached 281.7 billion won ($203.6 million) in 2023 and its operating profit also came in at 13.8 billion won during the same period, according to a regulatory filing to the Financial Supervisory Service.
The head of the company expected its sales to rise close to 500 billion won this year.
“Our short-term goal is to clinch a symbolic sales figure of 1 trillion won by 2028,” he said.