Corporate direct financing down 6% in March

South Korean companies’ stock and bond sales fell 6 percent in March from a month earlier due to a decline in sales of corporate debt, data showed Tuesday.

Local companies raised a combined 16.11 trillion won ($13.1 billion) by selling stocks and bonds in March, down 1.02 trillion won since February, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service. The decline is attributable to the 7.4 percent on-month fall in debt offerings to 15.64 trillion won, the FSS said.

Last month, five firms went public, and the aggregate amount of proceeds raised via initial public offerings came to 103.2 billion won, down 25.3 percent from February, the FSS said. The outstanding value of bonds issued by South Korean businesses came to 536.67 trillion won as of the end of March, up 1 percent from a month earlier. (Yonhap)