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Doosan plans to publicly list Bobcat for $860m

Doosan Infracore to float Doosan Bobcat on the stock market in a bid to improve its financial health

Doosan plans to publicly list Bobcat for $860m
Doosan plans to publicly list Bobcat for $860m

Doosan Infracore is planning to list Doosan Bobcat on the local stock market by around August this year, industry sources told Yonhap News Agency.

According to the sources, Doosan Bobcat has hired JP Morgan as co-lead manager for the market listing, which could see the company’s market capitalisation would reach up to $860m (one trillion won).

The move is the latest in a series of moves by the Doosan Group to improve the financial health of its Doosan Infracore division.

In December, Doosan Infracore also puts its profitable machining division up for sale, and in January named Standard Chartered as the preferred bidder for the purchase based on a $1.13bn offer.

The sale was widely seen as an indication of the growing desperation of the Doosan Group to balance the books at Doosan Infracore, which has been weighed down by debt ever since 2007, when it initially purchased Bobcat from Ingersoll-Rand for $4.9bn ahead of the global downturn.

Doosan Bobcat logged $332m in operating income on sales of $3.47bn (four trillion won) last year.

Hit by a protracted slump in the construction sector, Doosan Infracore, however, logged a loss of $738m last year with its operating income dropping 94% on-year to $23.5m (27.4 billion won).

This has since been exacerbated but the ongoing economic uncertainty in China, where  Doosan Infracore sold 6,900 construction vehicles in 2014, down 69% from 2010, while its market share fell to 8.2%.
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