Life really is good for LG Electronics India.

The Korean electronics giant’s Indian arm just made a record-breaking debut on the stock market. Its Rs 11,600 crore IPO pulled in bids worth over Rs 4 lakh crore—oversubscribed 54 times, with institutional investors alone wanting 166X more shares than they could get. When the stock finally listed, it didn’t disappoint: LG’s stock made a bumper debut at a 50% premium over the IPO price, opening around Rs 1,710 on NSE and the BSE.

LG’s parent built the brand. The Indian subsidiary built the business. And now, all the IPO proceeds—this was an offer-for-sale—go straight to Seoul, where LG is selling 15% of its stake in what’s clearly become a prized offspring.

It’s not hard to see why investors love LG. The appliance maker has mastered the art of being present everywhere so consumers can’t miss it. It runs India’s largest consumer-electronics distribution network, with more than 35,000 touchpoints, about 1.2X that of its next-biggest rival, according to its IPO prospectus. Multiple people The Ken spoke with indicated this to be its larger Korean rival, Samsung.

And over its three decades in India, its staying power has been as much about durable machines as it has been about durable relationships. Especially with retailers.

Retailers call LG a partner, not a supplier. Executives are known to drop by small stores, share a meal, even let retailers keep their margins when a target’s missed.

That intimacy has bred loyalty: nearly half of LG’s trade partners have stayed with the brand for over a decade. This has a cost, of course. LG shoulders more of its retailers’ burdens than peers like Samsung or Whirlpool. For now, that trade-off has worked: it’s made LG one of the most retailer-friendly foreign brands in Indian electronics.

But by carrying more of its retailers’ load, LG has built trust at the cost of efficiency. The company converts only about 60% of its operating profits into free cash flow, compared to 78% for Samsung and 95% for Whirlpool.

As the company eyes “profit maximisation” and a shift toward premium products, this relationship will soon be tested. The same generosity that built LG’s empire may not sit well with the discipline that premiumisation demands.