IPO Nears 12 Trillion Won This Year... Kosdaq Public Offering Stocks Draw Strong Interest

Kakao Pay's Subscription Closed Previous Day with Total Subscription Amount of 5.6 Trillion Won
Over 16 Trillion Won Poured into IPO Subscriptions of Enchem and GI Tech Ahead of KOSDAQ Listing
Money Flows into Undervalued Future Growth Companies in Semiconductors and Hydrogen

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] Kakao Pay, considered the last major public offering of the year, raised 5.6608 trillion KRW in subscription deposits from general investors during the subscription period on the 25th and 26th. The final subscription rate was 29.6 to 1. During the same period, water purifier filter company PicoGram recorded subscription deposits of 2.0755 trillion KRW and a subscription rate of 1520.4 to 1. Considering that Kakao Pay’s public offering size on the KOSPI market is 1.3 trillion KRW, while PicoGram’s entry into the KOSDAQ market is 12.5 billion KRW, PicoGram’s public offering can be considered a “blockbuster success.”

Recently, large sums of money have been flowing into the KOSDAQ public offering market. This is due to manufacturers with high future growth potential in semiconductors and hydrogen going public (IPO).

According to the financial investment industry on the 27th, electrolyte manufacturer Enchem raised 16.465 trillion KRW in subscription deposits during the public offering subscription on the 21st and 22nd. The subscription rate was 1275.69 to 1. GI Tech, a specialized company in manufacturing processes for secondary batteries and hydrogen batteries, recorded a subscription rate of 2968.36 to 1 and subscription deposits of 16.8306 trillion KRW during the general subscription on the 12th and 13th of this month. During the same period, eco-friendly semiconductor process equipment company GNB S Engineering had a subscription rate of 1479.9 to 1 and subscription deposits of 4.5867 trillion KRW.

However, since last month, the KOSPI market has continued to record failures in public offerings, especially those that faced overvaluation controversies. K Car recorded a final subscription rate of 8.7 to 1 and subscription deposits of only 366.8 billion KRW during the subscription from the 30th of last month to the 1st of this month. In contrast, Hyundai Heavy Industries, which went public earlier last month, raised subscription deposits amounting to 56 trillion KRW with a subscription rate of 405.5 to 1.

Meanwhile, according to the “Corporate Direct Financing Performance” announced by the Financial Supervisory Service on the same day, the scale of IPOs from the beginning of this year to last month reached 11.9202 trillion KRW. This represents a 478.3% increase from 2.0612 trillion KRW during the same period last year. In the case of last month, there were 14 IPOs, and except for Hyundai Heavy Industries, the rest took place on the KOSDAQ, resulting in a 64.6% decrease in funds raised through IPOs from 2.6391 trillion KRW in the previous month to 1.4486 trillion KRW.