RaymondsIndex

On 19 August, a small KOSDAQ manufacturer disclosed that its largest-shareholder block had changed hands. The filing was unusually bare. Purpose of acquisition: not applicable. Source of funds: not applicable. Plans to appoint or remove officers: not applicable. Reason for change: commencement of inheritance following the death of the largest shareholder. DUOBACK (KOSDAQ 073190), an ergonomic-chair maker founded in 1987, had 44.10% of its shares held by its chief executive and five related parties — 5,278,486 shares, of which 4,351,102 (36.36%) stood in the chief executive's own name. He died on 17 August; two days later the company filed the change; the next morning trading was suspended pending a delisting eligibility review. Read that sequence carefully. The causal chain is not the obvious one. What actually halted the stock The company had lost money at the operating line every year since 2021 — roughly ₩3.2bn, ₩4.2bn, ₩3.9bn, ₩3.4bn and ₩3.0bn across FY2021–FY2025. Its ma...

On 21 August 2026, Kakao's board approved a demerger. KakaoTalk and the company's AI stack go into a newly created listed entity, KakaoAI. The fintech, content and mobility holdings stay with the surviving entity, KakaoX. Existing shareholders receive shares in both, pro rata. An extraordinary general meeting is scheduled for 17 December, the demerger date is 1 January 2027, and KakaoAI is expected to relist on 27 January 2027. Most of the coverage argued about valuation — whether the conglomerate discount will close, whether retail shareholders are being handed the weaker half. Those are fair arguments. But the filing answers a different and more mechanical question first, and it answers it precisely. The ratio is a statement about the denominator The demerger ratio was set from book net assets: 0.6351463 to KakaoX, 0.3648537 to KakaoAI. That is a split of capital. It says how the balance sheet is being divided, and it is derived, not negotiated. Then the same disclosure ...

On 20 August 2026 Korea's Fair Trade Commission conditionally approved the Daesan No.1 combination, the first structural realignment submitted by the country's petrochemical industry. HD Hyundai Chemical will absorb Lotte Daesan Petrochemical, and Lotte Chemical and HD Hyundai Oilbank will each hold 50% of the merged entity and control it jointly. The number of domestic suppliers in low-density polyethylene and ethylene-vinyl acetate falls from four to three. After the deal, the top three will hold 82% of LDPE and 95% of EVA by sales volume. The remedies are entirely behavioural. For five years, domestic price movements in LDPE and EVA are benchmarked to export price movements. The companies must keep supplying every grade in production at the time of the combination when domestic buyers ask for it. Sharing of competitively sensitive information — prices, volumes, costs, inventory — is banned, as are dual appointments; staff returning to Lotte Chemical are excluded from LDPE ...

On 29 July 2026, a KOSDAQ-listed display equipment maker called Yas Co. (255440) told the market it had just finished the best quarter in its twenty-four-year history. Preliminary consolidated Q2 revenue came in at ₩87.2bn and operating profit at ₩26.2bn — increases of 1,373% and 1,107% against the same quarter a year earlier. On that same day, 590,135 of its shares were being dumped onto the open market by a creditor exercising security rights over stock the founder had pledged for a loan. The day before, 524,079 shares had gone the same way. For context, the average daily volume over the first twenty-seven days of July had been 18,909 shares. Over five sessions from 28 July to 3 August, 2,863,024 shares were sold this way, and the founder's holding fell from 42.58% to 18.07%. The company's position was that control had not changed hands, since no new major holder had filed. Both of these things were disclosed. Neither was hidden. And almost nobody read them together. The ...

In February 2026, Jollibee Foods Corporation (PSE: JFC) told its investors it was buying Korea's largest hot pot chain. The announcement was precise in a way acquisition announcements often are not. All Day Fresh, operator of Shabu All Day, would be acquired by Jolli-K — 70% JFC, 30% Korean private equity firm Elevation Equity Partners Korea — for approximately USD 87 million (roughly KRW 127 billion), at about 4x EV/EBITDA. The release named the unit economics that made the price work: a two-to-three-year payback period, approximately 40% ROIC, high double-digit EBITDA and EBIT margins, and a "capital-efficient, highly franchised business model." It named the store base: 169. It told shareholders that on completion, global store count would rise by roughly 1% — those 169 stores. Korea's Fair Trade Commission cleared the transaction in April. On 19 August 2026, the Korean business daily Etoday reported that the chain had closed 23 outlets. Store count, which the pap...

On August 18, 2026, a small Korean security-software company approved a modest financing that will not make international news. SSR, listed on KOSDAQ, resolved to issue 1,902,173 new shares at ₩3,680 each — about ₩7.0 billion — entirely to its controlling shareholder, Jiran Jigyo Security, and an affiliate, Jiran Jigyo S&C. Payment is due October 6. The shares are locked up with the Korea Securities Depository for one year. Several details deserve credit before anything else. The issue price carried a 0% discount to the ₩3,683 reference price — third-party allotments in Korea commonly price at a discount, and the controlling shareholder here chose not to take one. In March 2026, both companies cancelled their entire treasury holdings (400,000 shares and 382,090 shares respectively) and committed future repurchases to cancellation. As capital discipline, these are real signals, and they should be read as such. What interests me is a different line in the same filing. Two answe...