Korea's KOSDAQ heads for fewer than 50 new listings for the first time since 2014

Seven names carry that 70%. The two above their offer prices are Ingenia Therapeutics and Sky Labs, so the count is five to two, or 71.4%, and one more debut either way moves the figure several points ^[5][1].

The size of the breaks does not move. Dealicious is 58.1% below its offer price, and Kido Industrial, at 12,760 won against a 28,400-won offering, is 55.1% below ^[2][4][3]. A subscriber who held from allocation has lost more than half the money.

Then the pipeline. Twenty-eight non-SPAC companies have listed and about 20 have cleared the exchange's preliminary review, so even if every approved name completes its registration statement, book-building and subscription before year-end, the total lands near 48 ^[6][7][4]. At 50 the year comes in 19 companies short of last year, a 27.5% fall, and below the level the KOSDAQ held for the 11 years since 2014, when it managed 40 ^[5][9].

Deal size fell harder than deal count. Kakao Games at 384bn won, HK inno.N at 596.9bn and WCP at 432bn, all between 2020 and 2022, raised 1.41 trillion won between them, about 3.5 times what four deals raise when each barely clears the 100bn-won mark ^[11][10][6].

That leaves the funds carrying the positions. Reliance on the listing route for venture exits rose about 1.56 times between 2022 and the first half of this year, while the route itself narrowed ^[8]. Financial authorities plan a segment system that separates sound companies from troubled ones ^[13], and the industry has asked for support across tax, disclosure and financial rules as well ^[14].

"Newly listed companies have to succeed for the next wave of ventures and startups to attempt IPOs and raise money," a securities industry official told Seoul Economic Daily ^[15]. The same official said: "Beyond simply dividing up the KOSDAQ market, we need to think about ways to strengthen the fundamentals of companies that are already listed." ^[16]

The report does not include book-building outcomes for the recent deals, so it does not show whether issuers are pricing below their indicated bands or pricing at the top and then breaking. There are two ways to read the sub-offer prints. Seoul Economic Daily notes that new listings usually hold up until lockup shares are released in earnest ^[17]. On that reading the weakness is a supply event and demand at the point of issue is intact.

The other reading is that buyers are repricing new KOSDAQ paper at subscription, and in my view the listing count supports it: 28 completed deals against 20 approvals still queued is a demand problem that shows up before any lockup expires ^[6][7]. If those 20 companies file this autumn and price at the top of their bands, that reading is wrong, and the story is lockup supply after all.