[Featured Stock] KakaoBank Fails to Open at Double the IPO Price... Becomes Leading Financial Stock

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] Although KakaoBank failed to achieve 'Ttah-sang' (listing at double the IPO price followed by hitting the upper limit) on its first day of listing on the 6th, it rose more than 20% to become the leading financial stock.

As of 9:22 AM on the day, KakaoBank was trading at 63,500 KRW on the KOSPI market, up 9,900 KRW (18.44%) from the opening price. The opening price was set at 53,700 KRW, about 37.7% higher than the IPO price of 39,000 KRW, thus failing to achieve Ttah-sang. Although it traded below the opening price shortly after the market opened, it showed high volatility, rising up to 68,000 KRW during the session. At this time, the market capitalization is approximately 29 trillion KRW, surpassing KB Financial Group, which was previously the top financial holding company, making KakaoBank the new leading financial stock.

Earlier, during the two-day general subscription period from the 26th to 27th of last month, KakaoBank succeeded in attracting strong interest with a final competition rate of 182.7 to 1 and subscription deposits totaling 58.302 trillion KRW.

Although duplicate subscriptions were not allowed for this IPO, the subscription applications surged, resulting in a high competition rate. KakaoBank's ranking in subscription deposits was fifth all-time, following SK IE Technology (80.9 trillion KRW), SK Bioscience (63.6 trillion KRW), Kakao Games (58.5542 trillion KRW), and HYBE (58.4238 trillion KRW).