South Korea looks set for a record IPO year

Hong Kong

RIDING a Seoul stocks revival, some of South Korea's biggest family firms are set to clean house this year with multibillion dollar initial public offerings that will fire the country to a record year for new listings.

Family-run conglomerates, or chae-bols, like Samsung, Doosan and Lotte, are listing assets to streamline structures, smooth paths towards management succession or ease debt burdens. Added to other deals in the pipeline, IPOs planned by these three will take proceeds this year to at least US$10 billion, bankers say, eclipsing 2010's high of US$8.5 billion.