Attendees visit MegazoneCloud’s booth at the NextRise 2024 startup expo at COEX in Seoul on June 14. Courtesy of MegazoneCloud
By Nam Hyun-woo
MegazoneCloud has expressed confidence in its initial public offering (IPO), which could increase the value of the Korean cloud management company to as much as $7 billion, and has selected several well-known brokerage houses as lead managers.
According to the company, it has selected a total of six underwriters – three global and three domestic – for the IPO. JP Morgan Securities, Samsung Securities and Korea Investment and Securities will take on the role of bookrunners. BofA Securities, Citigroup Global Markets Korea Securities and KB Securities will also participate in the IPO.
MegazoneCloud will hold talks with these underwriters to conduct bookbuilding processes and determine the desired markets. Market observers believe the company could make its debut in markets, including Korea’s benchmark index KOSPI, as early as next year.
MegazoneCloud is the largest managed service partner for Amazon Web Services in Asia and the leading partner for Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure in Korea, helping enterprises connect to cloud platforms. MegazoneCloud currently provides cloud, data analytics and generative artificial intelligence services to over 7,000 customers and has partnerships with over 100 major solution providers.
MegazoneCloud was founded in 2018 through a spin-off from its parent company Megazone and was valued at $1.74 billion in 2022, overcoming a hostile environment in the global investment market characterized by high interest rates.
This year, the company secured $326 million in investments from MBK Partners and IMM Private Equity, attracting investors’ attention due to its growth potential. In 2023, MegazoneCloud’s revenue was $1.09 billion, up 12.7 percent year-on-year.
Through the IPO, the company aims to improve its financial stability and accelerate its expansion into global markets.
In addition to its domestic activities, MegazoneCloud has expanded its international business through eight overseas subsidiaries in the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai and Beijing in China. The company’s overseas sales to managed services providers reached around 50 million US dollars, an increase of 44 percent over the previous year, driven by strong growth in the Japanese market.
“MegazoneCloud has experienced continuous growth, generating revenues of over $1 billion over the past two years and reporting net profit in the first quarter of this year,” said a senior company official.
“The company has over $360 million in cash and is also evaluating opportunities to expand its business through large-scale mergers and acquisitions based on stable cash flow.”
