South Korea’s corporate financing dropped in May

Equity issues and IPO volumes plummeted during the month.

Corporate financing in South Korea fell in May compared to a month earlier, according to data issued by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

Corporate financing through debt and equity issues in May came in at KRW21.18t, lower by KRW3.46b compared to April.

Corporate financing through issuance of commercial paper and short-term bonds also declined over the same period, to KRW97.55t in May.

Equity issues decreased 70.2% on the back of lower initial public offerings (IPO). Four IPOs were reported in May, and the IPO volume dropped 85.8% to KRW79.5b in May from KRW558b in April.

Volume rights offerings also decreased by 10.5% to KRW130.1b over the same period.

Debt issues fell by 12.4% between April and May, to KRW20.97t.

Issuance of corporate bonds were halved. Banks notably cut their issuance by 20.6% to KRW6.82t in May. Financial holding companies’ issuances grew 11.1% to KRW800b.

On an earlier report, Korea's financial companies reported KRW57.6t ($42.05b) invested in overseas real estate as of 2023, an increase of KRW1.2t ($876m) from the previous quarter.