Stock issuance last year topped 35 trillion won, rebounding for the first time in four years.
In particular, paid-in capital increases accounted for about 88% of the total issuance amount. It is seen as corporations moving to raise large sums by taking advantage of rising share prices.
According to the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) on Feb. 5, the value of shares issued through electronic registration last year was 35.8433 trillion won, up 45.5% from the previous year (24.635 trillion won).
The issuance amount had declined for three straight years since 2021 (50.7435 trillion won) but rose again for the first time in four years.
The main driver of last year's increase in stock issuance was paid-in capital increases. Of the total issued amount, 31.4703 trillion won came from paid-in capital increases, accounting for 87.8% of the total.
By contrast, the number of issuing companies (1,225) and the number of shares issued (13.487 billion) fell 3.8% and 26.9%, respectively, from a year earlier.
By market, issuers listed on the main board accounted for 22.6% of total shares issued and 53.6% (19.2251 trillion won) of the issuance amount.
By volume, KOSDAQ-listed shares were the largest at about 6.862 billion (50.9%), followed by unlisted corporations (25.9%) and main-board listed shares (22.6%).
Excluding paid-in capital increases, the breakdown by reason for issuance was 11.2% (4.01 trillion won) from exercises of convertible bonds (CB) and bonds with warrants (BW), and 1.0% (363 billion won) from stock option exercises.