Jeong Eun-bo Chairman "Establishment of Future Business Division to Foster Data and Index Business"

Jung Eun-bo, Chairman of Korea Exchange, Holds Press Conference on 100 Days Since Inauguration
Announces 4 Core Strategies and 12 Initiatives for 'Corporate Value-Up, Capital Market Level-Up'
Value-Up Index to be Released in September, Related Investment Products Including ETFs to Launch by Year-End

"The past 100 days have been a time to deeply realize the necessity of resolving the Korea Discount (undervaluation of the Korean stock market)."

Jung Eun-bo, Chairman of the Korea Exchange, held a press conference at the Korea Exchange on the 24th to mark 100 days since his inauguration, under the theme "Korea Exchange's Core Strategies for Corporate Value-Up and Capital Market Level-Up." Chairman Jung is making a presentation. Photo by Heo Young-han younghan@

Jung Eun-bo, Chairman of the Korea Exchange (KRX), held a press conference on the 24th at the Korea Exchange in Yeouido, Seoul, marking his 100th day in office, and shared his reflections on this milestone.

Chairman Jung stated, "Recently, global stock markets have been rising centered on the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, but the domestic market has not seen a relatively large increase. This indicates that despite the quantitative growth of the stock market, qualitative growth that drives stock price increases has been insufficient." He emphasized, "Even now, we must accelerate corporate value-up policies, expand fair asset management opportunities for the public, and find new growth engines for our capital market to level up the capital market."

At the press conference held under the theme of 'Corporate Value-Up, Capital Market Level-Up,' Chairman Jung announced the finalized guidelines for the corporate value enhancement plan and presented the '4 Core Strategies and 12 Implementation Tasks,' which include ▲supporting corporate value-up ▲expanding fair asset management opportunities ▲securing new growth engines for the capital market ▲strengthening capital market marketing and communication.

Establishing the Future Business Division to Secure New Revenue Sources

First, the Exchange plans to establish a 'Future Business Division,' a dedicated business unit to conduct index and data businesses. Chairman Jung said, "We will break away from the existing fee-based revenue structure and actively discover future growth engines. We will establish a business division (tentatively named Future Business Division) focusing on growth businesses such as indexes and data to serve as a hub for securing new revenue sources."

The Exchange plans to actively support corporate value-up for the Korea Premium. Following the announcement of the corporate value enhancement plan guidelines, it will release the Korea Value-Up Index in September and launch financial products such as index-linked exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the end of the year. Chairman Jung explained, "Japan has successfully promoted value-up through index development and used it as an incentive structure for companies. Inspired by this, we plan to create and announce an index centered on companies successfully operating corporate value-up programs. We expect the index to be created around September, and considering the process of creating actual investment funds after the index announcement, specific investment funds such as ETFs are expected to be launched by the end of the year." He added, "By creating funds based on the index and generating additional investment demand for companies included in the index, it will greatly help the overall valuation of companies successfully promoting value-up."

Companies included in the index will be selected based on capital efficiency and shareholder-friendly policies. Chairman Jung stated, "The core of value-up promotion is to expand corporate capital efficiency and practice shareholder-friendly management. Regarding which companies will be included in the index, we plan to select those with relatively good capital efficiency and shareholder-friendly characteristics." He further explained, "However, capital efficiency may vary depending on the industry or the maturity stage of the sector to which the company belongs. Therefore, when selecting target companies, we will comprehensively consider the characteristics of the industry, company size, and the development stage of the industry. By doing so, we will prevent discrimination by industry, growth stage, or size."

Value-Up Encourages Participation Based on Autonomy with Incentives... Additional Incentives to Be Considered if Necessary

Regarding the operation of the corporate value enhancement plan, Chairman Jung emphasized inducement through autonomy and incentives. He said, "I believe it is undesirable to introduce regulations while promoting the value-up program, so we adopted a principle of an incentive structure based on autonomy." He added, "Some may argue that relying on autonomy makes it difficult to achieve short-term efficiency or long-term effectiveness, but I think that market pressure or peer pressure naturally generated during the value-up process will help establish it in the long term. This is the process of successfully rooting value-up in the capital market." The plan is to encourage corporate participation through incentives rather than imposing strict controls. Chairman Jung said, "In addition to tax-related incentives, we are preparing incentives such as support for English disclosures. If there are parts that require additional incentives to encourage more participation during the operation process, we will consider adding incentives," he added.

Jung Eun-bo, Chairman of the Korea Exchange, held a press conference at the Korea Exchange on the 24th to mark his 100th day in office, under the theme "Korea Exchange's Core Strategies for Corporate Value-Up and Capital Market Level-Up." Chairman Jung is answering questions from reporters. Photo by Heo Young-han younghan@

To establish value-up firmly, active overseas promotion will also be conducted. Chairman Jung previously visited Tokyo and New York to hold the 'K-Value-Up Global Roadshow.' He said, "Overseas institutional investors have shown great interest in the Korean market. Many overseas institutional investors are currently in the process of withdrawing funds invested in China, and in their decision-making process on where to invest the funds recovered from China within Asia, they have shown significant interest in the ongoing Korean value-up program. The funds withdrawn from the Chinese market could be an important opportunity for investment in Korea through this value-up program." He added, "After holding investor relations (IR) sessions in the U.S. and Japan, there was demand for responsible Korean authorities to explain the Korean value-up program in Hong Kong and Singapore as well. Considering this demand, it would be good to conduct additional overseas IR sessions as early as possible." Alongside this, a K-Value-Up marketing base will be established in English-speaking regions.

Additionally, the Exchange plans to build a fair asset management opportunity for the public by collaborating with financial authorities to establish an illegal short-selling monitoring system and proactively respond to increasingly sophisticated unfair trading. It also plans to rationalize the IPO and delisting system to create a virtuous cycle ecosystem where zombie companies are timely exited. Chairman Jung explained, "Regarding short selling, the Exchange is responsible for creating a central monitoring system. To detect and penalize illegal short selling early, the central monitoring system must be well established. We expect it to take about one year, or at best 10 months, to build the system."

Regarding new growth engines for the capital market, the Exchange plans to establish an integrated market management system ahead of the launch of the Alternative Trading System (ATS) and open its own night market for derivatives next year to secure global competitiveness.

Finally, Chairman Jung emphasized, "Through bold challenges and innovation, we will accumulate the intellectual capital of the Exchange and become a catalyst for 'Corporate Value-Up, Capital Market Level-Up.' Through this, we will resolve the chronic Korea Discount problem in our capital market and promote recognition of the Korea Premium by pursuing strategic tasks with a long-term perspective."