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Samreen Ahmad · · 1 min readSouth Korean digital lender KakaoBank’s shares jump 70% in its debut
“KakaoBank Corp, South Korea’s first internet-only lender to go public, surged more than 70% in its trading debut in Seoul to become the country’s largest retail lender by market value,” Bloomberg reported.
Details:
- KakaoBank’s market capitalization crossed US$28 billion with the jump in its shares. KakaoBank’s US$2.2 billion public offering is the biggest this year after Krafton‘s listing.
- Before KakaoBank’s stock market debut, the country’s largest financial firm by market value was KB Financial Group, followed by Shinhan Financial Group and Hana Financial Group.
Dive deeper:
- First-day jumps aren’t unusual in South Korea, where influential retail investors are keen to snap up stocks on their initial trading day for quick returns.
- Nearly half of the 113 companies that went public in Seoul in the past 12 months ended their inaugural session with shares trading at least 30% higher than the initial public offering price.
Editing by Collin Furtado and Arpit Nayak
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