Lee Chan-jin, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, called it a "ridiculous situation" that Mirae Asset Securities failed to receive even a single share in the SpaceX IPO allocation, and said, "We will prevent a recurrence, as an uncomfortable situation has arisen from the investor's standpoint."
On the 22nd at a regular press briefing held at the Financial Supervisory Service headquarters, Lee said, "The U.S. securities registration statement indicated that 2.31 million shares had been secured for allocation, but the professional investors who actually participated in the private subscription were not allocated even a single share," adding, "We will focus on looking into why this happened and whether investor protection procedures were properly carried out."
Earlier, Mirae Asset Securities said it would participate in the SpaceX IPO underwriting syndicate and had been guided to expect an allocation of 2.31 million shares, but on the 12th, the day of listing, Goldman Sachs withdrew the entire allocation, and the company said investors were not allocated any shares.
The Financial Supervisory Service will also review the overall procedures for professional investor registration and sales during this inspection. Lee said, "As we understand that the number of professional investors increased by about 4,000 in a short period, we will examine whether registration and operating procedures were appropriate," adding, "The volume of materials we need to verify is vast, so the inspection period may be longer than expected."
However, it noted there are limits to directly investigating Goldman Sachs, the overseas lead manager. Lee explained, "Global IBs located abroad are not subject to supervision, so while we can request materials, there is no way to compel them," adding, "If truly necessary, we could request cooperation from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)."
Regarding the view that domestic public offering regulations make it difficult for overseas companies to solicit Korean investors ahead of global initial public offerings (IPOs) by OpenAI and Anthropic, Lee took a cautious stance. "Because differences between (domestic and overseas) disclosure regimes make public offerings difficult, there are opinions asking for exceptions tailored to local conditions," Lee said, "but financial authorities are cautious about this."
Lee added, "However, to improve predictability for investors, we will share the findings of the SpaceX inspection and increase transparency so investors are not harmed."
Meanwhile, the Financial Supervisory Service is also reviewing allegations that Korea Investment Management exaggerated advertising for a SpaceX-related ETF. The Financial Supervisory Service plans to launch an on-site inspection of one of the asset managers, including KIM, that engaged in exaggerated advertising, and it will also look into whether SpaceX was pre-included in the ETF in violation of the index methodology.