Korea Exchange (KRX) carried out a regular change of the constituents of the Korea Value-Up Index and reorganized the index system around corporations that disclosed corporate value enhancement plans (Value-Up). HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, SK Square, and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering were newly added, while Hyundai Rotem, Hyosung Heavy Industries, and LS Electric were removed from the index.
Korea Exchange (KRX) said on the 28th that it held the Index Operations Committee on the 21st and, after reviewing the regular change plan for the Korea Value-Up Index constituents, decided to newly add 20 stocks and remove 19. The changes will be reflected starting June 12.
With this regular change, the Korea Value-Up Index has once again established a 100-constituent framework. Earlier, the number of constituents had fallen to 99 after HD Hyundai Infracore was removed due to a merger.
New additions include HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, SK Square, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, and HD Hyndai Marine Solution, bringing in a large number of shipbuilding and holding company-related corporations. Observers said the move reflects the recent strength of shipbuilding and offshore plant stocks in the market.
Also newly included were Samsung E&A, Sanil Electric, Hyundai Movex, MNC Solution, Sejin Heavy Industries, SNT Energy, VITZRO CELL, and JUNJIN Construction Robot. In consumer stocks, SL Corporation and APR were added, and in financials, NH Investment & Securities was newly included.
By contrast, Hyundai Rotem, Hyosung Heavy Industries, and LS Electric, along with POSCO DX, Jusung Engineering, Park Systems, Lotte Chilsung, DoubleU Games, Hanssem, and MegaStudyEdu, were removed. Kyungdong Navien, Solus Advanced Materials, INNOX Advanced Materials, Myoung Shin Industry, Chong Kun Dang pharmaceutical, WONTECH, and Dentium were also among those excluded.
This regular change also applied a special inclusion for corporations with outstanding corporate value enhancement. Korea District Heating Corporation (KDHC) and ST Pharm were included in the index as outstanding corporations, and their inclusion will be maintained for the next two years.
In particular, through this change, the Korea Value-Up Index filled all 100 constituents with corporations that disclosed corporate value enhancement plans. The exchange emphasized that the Value-Up Index is a policy-driven index aimed at promoting a culture of corporate value enhancement and has gradually increased the index weighting centered on disclosing corporations.
In fact, the share of disclosing corporations in the index was only about 7% when the index was announced in Sep. 2024, but it expanded to 25% in Dec. of the same year, to 61% in June this year, and with this regular change will rise to 100%.
After the regular change, the market capitalization share of the Korea Value-Up Index constituents is about 54.6% of the total market capitalization of the combined KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets.
After this regular change, the possibility of differentiated supply-demand dynamics between added and removed stocks is also in focus. Generally, stocks added to an index tend to see expectations of inflows from related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and passive funds, while removed stocks may face short-term supply-demand pressure.