COSMAX shares fell more than 14% in early trading on the 13th. Although it announced strong first-quarter results, they appeared to fall short of market expectations.
As of 10:04 a.m. that day on the Korea Exchange, COSMAX was trading at 186,900 won, down 32,600 won (14.85%) from the previous session.
COSMAX said in a filing the previous day that, on a consolidation basis for the first quarter of this year, revenue was 682 billion won and operating profit was 53 billion won on a preliminary basis. Those figures were up 15.9% and 3.3%, respectively, from a year earlier. It was a record quarterly revenue, but operating profit missed the consensus (average forecast) by 4%.
Shinhan Investment & Securities in a report that day revised its investment opinion on COSMAX from "buy" to "trading buy."
Park Hyun-jin, an analyst at Shinhan Investment & Securities, said, "It is a concern that the growth rate of the Korea subsidiary, which has the highest revenue share, is lower than peers," and noted, "Peer companies showed the opposite trend, with a larger profit leverage effect from revenue growth at their Korea subsidiaries."