Kumyang, which is facing the risk of delisting, has delayed its paid-in capital increase plan four times, and even the 40.5 billion won repayment of short-term borrowings presented as a fallback has not been deposited. With only four months left in the improvement period granted by the Korea Exchange (KRX), investor anxiety is mounting.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on Dec. 8, Kumyang disclosed that after postponing the payment date for a 405 billion won paid-in capital increase four times, the repayment of short-term borrowings scheduled for on the 3rd also fell through.
The delisting crisis for Kumyang, whose market capitalization once reached 10 trillion won, dates back to March this year. In March, Kumyang was designated as an unfaithful disclosure company by the exchange, raising its cumulative penalty points to 17. It was then designated as an issue under management and was also expelled from the KOSPI 200.
A bigger crisis followed. The company received a "disclaimer of opinion" from its external auditor on last year's financial statements, triggering grounds for delisting. At the time, Hanul Accounting Corporation, Kumyang's auditor, assessed that "there is significant uncertainty that may raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern." However, the exchange decided to grant an improvement period through April 14, 2026, delaying the delisting.
Kumyang must resolve the grounds for delisting during the one-year improvement period. To do so, improving the financial structure became an urgent task, and Chair Ryu Gwang-ji of Kumyang said at the regular shareholders meeting in March this year that the company would quickly raise funds at home and abroad to fix the problem.
In June, Kumyang announced a plan to overcome the crisis through a 405 billion won third-party allotment paid-in capital increase. It would issue new shares to "Skyve Trading & Investment," a Saudi Arabian firm, to raise 405 billion won.
But the payment date was pushed back four times from August to November. Each time the company changed the payment date, it cited reasons such as "the overseas remittance process did not proceed smoothly." In the capital market industry, there were repeated questions that the identity of Skyve, the subscriber of the new shares, was unclear. The firm was founded in March this year and had only 100 million won in capital.
When even the rescheduled third payment date for the capital increase on the 28th of last month passed without funds arriving, Kumyang said it would first receive 40.5 billion won—10% of the capital increase amount—from Skyve, the target of the capital increase, in the form of a repayment of short-term borrowings. The market's skepticism grew over the unusual structure of borrowing short-term funds from the very party set to invest, and, as expected, the repayment of short-term borrowings scheduled for on the 3rd was not executed.
In the disclosure, Kumyang said, "It was not executed due to issues in the investor's remittance procedures," and added, "We will file a correction disclosure on the day the short-term borrowing is executed."
With the end of the improvement period granted by the Korea Exchange (KRX) (April 14, 2026) now four months away, investor anxiety has peaked. One investor said, "Since the talk about the repayment of short-term borrowings came out in a disclosure, I had some hopes, but it didn't come in this time either," adding, "Do we have to keep dragging this out and wait until April like this?"