SK Innovation has cancelled an initial public offering of SK Lubricants.
Having suffered from an industry-wide slump last year (with operating losses of 224.1bn won - $202.5m it had planned to attract investment in 2015. However, the timing still appears to be wrong to seek help from the markets.
"We are stopping the IPO process of SK Lubricants as it might be difficult to evaluate its appropriate corporate value after the lube business suffered a temporary downturn," SK Innovation said in a regulatory filing.
The announcement comes despite the fact that the South Korean refiner reduced inventory-related losses in the first Quarter on the back of a rebound in oil prices, showing a 3% rise in its operating profit from a year earlier and, overall, the first and second quarters of 2015 have produced earnings which were better than expected.