South Korea’s private equity firm Noh & Partners is cashing out on its entire holding in electric vehicle battery separator manufacturer W-Scope Korea Co. (WCP) that is readying to go public next year, according to investment banking sources on Thursday.

Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers manages the sale as lead adviser.

The 32 percent stake in WPC up for sale is worth an estimated 640-800 billion won ($560-700 million), considering its enterprise value of 2.5 trillion won, equivalent to one third of market leader SK IE Technology’s market cap of 15 trillion won.

WCP’s manufacturing output and annual revenue are one third of the levels of SK IET.

Noh & Partners acquired 149 billion won worth convertible bonds issued by WCP in 2019. It has decided to convert them all into shares to cash out.

WCP was set up as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s W-Scope in 2005. It produces lithium-ion battery separators for electric vehicles, which is a core EV battery material making up 15-20 percent of the battery price. Its separators are supplied to large secondary battery makers on long-term contracts.

WCP aims to go public in Korea by the first half of next year. Considering the IPO of SK IET, WCP is estimated to be valued at 3 trillion won or more after the market debut. Underwriters are KB Securities Co. and Shinhan Investment Corp.

By Park Chang-young and Lee Ha-yeon

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