Aekyung Industrial, Korean household and personal care product maker, is preparing for its debut on the Seoul bourse early next year, the company’s official said Wednesday.

This is the latest move by Aekyung Group, a conglomerate whose businesses range from daily necessities and chemicals to department stores, to list its affiliates following the initial public offering of the country’s No. 1 budget airliner Jeju Air last year. 


“We plan to go public in the first half of the next year but nothing else has been decided just yet,” Choi Jee-hae, an official at the firm said.

She said the company is seeking an adviser and plans to appoint a banker by the end of March.

AK Holdings, the group’s holding firm, holds a 50.1 percent stake in the company and Aekyung, the group’s retail subsidiary, holds the rest.

In recent years, Aekyung Industrial, which has been manufacturing mainly shampoo and toothpaste, shifted its focus to cosmetics.

Thanks to the robust growth of its beauty care sector, the firm projects revenue in 2015 to be 460 billion won ($372 million), up 15 percent from a year earlier. Operating profit is expected to jump 400 percent over the same period to 37 billion won.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)