Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Korea Exchange lowers listing bar for promising K-unicorn companies
Korea Exchange (KRX) Chairman and CEO Sohn Byung-doo speaks during a press conference held at the KRX's Seoul office building in Yeouido, Wednesday. / Courtesy of KRX
By Anna J. Park
Bourse operator unveils five key strategic goals, including launching 'ESG portal'
By Anna J. Park
The Korea Exchange (KRX) will ease listing rules to attract more Korean unicorn companies while making further efforts to encourage local firms to embrace environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) values in their management, KRX Chairman and CEO Sohn Byung-doo said Wednsday.
These are part of the bourse operator's key strategic goals and policies for this year, unveiled by Sohn during a press conference held at the KRX's Yeouido building.
Sohn stressed that local unicorn companies with more than 1 trillion won ($800 million) in market cap now have the right to list themselves on the benchmark KOSPI market, without the need to meet any further requirements. For those with market cap sizes under the 1 trillion won mark, the bourse operator lowered the minimum market cap size for listing from the current 600 billion won to 500 billion won.
“As there are several other Korea-headquartered innovative unicorn companies aiming to go public this year, the KRX will attempt to create favorable market conditions to attract these innovative businesses into the local stock market,” Sohn said, adding that Korean e-commerce company Coupang's recent listing on the U.S. stock market provided a chance to examine local stock market conditions and devise a more favorable environment with policies to attract listings of promising local unicorn companies.
The bourse operator chief said politicians and the local financial industry is currently discussing whether to allow issuing different classes of common shares with different numbers of voting rights on the Korean stock markets, as one of the reasons that Coupang decided to list itself on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was the U.S. stock market's issuance of differentiated share classes.
Korea Exchange (KRX) Chairman and CEO Sohn Byung-doo speaks during a press conference held at the KRX's Seoul office building on Yeouido, Wednesday. / Courtesy of KRX
'Strengthened sensibility towards ESG to dissipate Korea discount'
Another key pillar of the KRX's strategic goals is leading the capital market's change based on ESG principles.
The state-run bourse operator will launch an “ESG Portal,” a platform which compiles comprehensive ESG-related information on listed companies, such as ESG-factor announcements, ESG reports and ESG evaluations. From 2025, KOSPI-listed companies with total asset sizes of more than 2 trillion won will be required to publicly announce sustainable management reports on their eco-friendly and social responsibility activities and corporate governance.
“Increased sensibility to ESG principles in corporate governance will ultimately help remove the so-called Korea discount,” the KRX CEO said, adding small changes toward more transparent corporate management systems will improve the country's stock market conditions.
The bourse operator plans to devise three new eco-friendly indices ― KRX 300 Climate Change Index, KOSPI 200 Climate Change Index and Climate Change Leaders' Index ― to be widely used on major institutional investors and financial companies' development of new exchange-traded fund products.
The KRX will also create a fast-track listing route for ESG-themed Korean New Deal exchange-traded products (ETPs) to rev up the ESG-themed market, in line with the Moon administration's five-year K-New Deal initiatives worth a total 160 trillion won.