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E-commerce platform operator Coupang (Yonhap) |
South Korean listed companies that have business ties with Coupang have seen their shares spike, backed by expectations of benefits from the local e-commerce giant’s mega US initial public offering.
Dongbang, a logistics firm that handles Coupang’s delivery services, saw its shares jump by a daily permissible limit of 29.99 percent to reach 9,970 won ($9.03) at the closing bell on Monday. After the shares gained for the fourth straight session on the nation’s benchmark Kospi market, they also recorded a fresh 52-week high.
Another Kospi-listed stock, KCTC, also skyrocketed by a daily upper limit of 29.88 percent to a 52-week high of 6,150 won. It handles distribution and storage for Coupang.
Media content platform company KTH’s shares spiked 29.87 percent to 12,000 won on the tech-studded Kosdaq market. Autech, which supplies cargo vans to Coupang, advanced 9.09 percent while film distributor and producer Showbox and mobile payment provider Danal rose 9.26 percent and 6.17 percent, respectively.
ESR Kendall Square, the country’s first real estate investment trust dedicated to logistics facilities, also benefited by climbing up 2.9 percent by having the e-commerce firm as one of its key tenants. Internet giant Naver, which is a strong competitor of Coupang, was reevaluated, with shares up by 5.18 percent.
Coupang officially kicked off its efforts to achieve on the New York Stock Exchange listing by submitting documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The e-commerce giant could make a market debut as early as March, while the listing is expected to garner a valuation topping $50 billion, according to investment banking sources.
Returning from the Lunar New Year holiday, the local indexes’ bull run continued amid stellar advances by tech stocks.
Fueled by strong foreign buying, the key stock index Kospi started off strong and further rose 1.5 percent to close at 3,147 points. The secondary Kosdaq also began trading higher and continuously moved upward to end trading at 981.97 points, increasing 1.83 percent from the previous session’s close.
Analysts said the upward momentum was primarily attributed to not only Coupang’s NYSE listing plan, but also backed by improved exports and the soaring US Philadelphia semiconductor sector index over the holiday.
“Backed by Bitcoin’s steep hike and the administration of US President Joe Biden’s plan (to take steps to alleviate the global semiconductor shortage), the Philadelphia index jumped over 5 percent over the Lunar New Year holiday,” said Seo Sang-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities.
“The US stimulus hopes and strong chip shares added the momentum to the local indexes. Coupang’s (public listing) issue was also another driving force of the strong trade, which together led majority sectors to perform solid throughout the day.”
The Korean won rose against the US greenback. The local currency closed at 1,101.4 won against the dollar, up 5.6 won from the previous session‘s close.
By Jie Ye-eun (
yeeun@heraldcorp.com)
