HONG KONG ― The KOSDAQ Global Investors Conference took place at Shangri-La Hotel on Friday, offering a venue for an investment relations session for 12 South Korean companies traded on the tech-heavy KOSDAQ.

The first-ever IR conference for the leading firms listed on the secondary stock market was organized by Korea Exchange (KRX) and KOSDAQ Listed Companies Association (KOSDAQCA). The Hong Kong edition followed the first event held on Wednesday in Singapore.

“We have plenty of good companies listed on the KOSDAQ stock market, and as KRX plans to hold this conference regularly for fund managers and investors, we hope more Asian investors will be familiar with the leading Korean companies,” said Jin Soo-hyung, president of KOSDAQ Market Division at KRX.

“For KOSDAQ-listed Korean firms, coming out for this forum and promoting their profile among foreign investors is important for diversifying their shareholder portfolios,” Jin said. 

Compared with other Asian markets, Korea’s main bourse KOSPI and the junior KOSDAQ demonstrated more volatility in recent months amid growing worries over the debt woes in Europe and the U.S. One main reason for high volatility on the KOSDAQ is that mainly local investors trade the shares for the short term and only a handful of them attract attention from foreign institutional investors.

KRX officials said the investors conference will help leading tech firms increase their exposure to such foreign investors so that their shareholder base will be diversified, a development that could offset the volatility coming from massive day trading orders by individual investors. As of the end of 2010, KOSDAQ was the world’s No. 2 growth market in terms of trading value.

The twelve KOSDAQ frontrunners that joined the conference included Celltrion Inc., GemVax & KAEL Co., POSCO ICT Co., Soulbrain Co. and Sung Kwang Bend Co.

As part of efforts to enhance the credibility of the tech-oriented bourse, KRX has introduced a KOSDAQ premier index, comprising the top 100 outstanding companies on the market, and developed an exchange-traded fund based on that index. In addition, the KOSDAQ market has adopted a qualitative examination to de-list firms failing to meet its standards to better protect investors.

Tim Andrew, global head of cash equities at Standard Chartered, which helped organize the event in Hong Kong together with KRX, said raising visibility of Korean firms among foreign investors is crucial. “Profile-building is massively important,” he told reporters, adding that Standard Chartered plans to provide more research on Korea in the near future to help Korean firms be exposed to more investors in Asia.

Andrew also noted that the Korean market has been volatile but the company has an overly heavy stance on Korea. “From our perspective, Korea as a market will outperform other Asian markets over the next 12 month-period,” he said.

By Yang Sung-jin, Korea Herald correspondent
(insight@heraldcorp.com)