SK Innovation Co. in a shareholders meeting Thursday gave a go-ahead to its scheme of breaking up the operation into separate energy flagship and battery pure player, and said it won’t rush to go public with the new battery unit.

The purpose of spinning off the EV battery business is to achieve independency in management to make timely investment, said SK Innovation CEO Kim Joon at an extraordinary shareholders meeting that blessed the creation of a pure-play battery company, tentatively named SK Battery.

He answered IPO for SK Battery won’t likely happen next year as the parent wants to wait until its value is adequately recognized by the market.

Since SK announced its plan to spin off EV battery business, the market has expected the new unit’s IPO to take place as early as next year.

In addition to separate out EV battery business, SK Innovation is setting up oil exploration and production business, tentatively named SK E&P, as an independent unit on Oct. 1.

SK Battery will be responsible for the medium-to-large-sized EV batteries, battery as a service (BaaS), and energy storage system (ESS) businesses, and SK E&P will run oil exploration and production business, and carbon capture & storage (CCS) business.

On Thursday, SK Innovation shares closed 4.44 percent lower at 237,000 won ($202.05).

By Choi Keun-do and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]