Early on the 7th, Wing Yip Food Holdings(900340) went straight to the upper limit (the top of the daily price limit band). It appears investor sentiment improved as Chief Executive Wang Hyun-do made an open-market purchase of shares and the largest shareholder also joined a large paid-in capital increase.
As of 9:10 a.m. that day on the KOSDAQ market, Wing Yip Food Holdings was trading at 1,554 won, up 358 won (29.93%) from the previous session.
Wang said the previous day that the chief executive would make an open-market purchase of 219,178 shares of Wing Yip Food Holdings (about 254 million won). The open-market purchase period is from Sept. 7 to Oct. 6. Earlier, on the 5th, Wang made an open-market purchase of 18,355 company shares (21.07 million won).
Two people, including Wang Zhengfeng, the largest shareholder, participated that day in a third-party allotment paid-in capital increase and paid in 2.3 million shares (about 36.8 billion won).
The market sees these share buybacks and the paid-in capital increase as measures to respond to the financial authorities' tougher listing maintenance requirements. Earlier, on the 5th, Wing Yip Food Holdings received a preliminary notice of potential designation as an issue under management after its market capitalization fell below 20 billion won for 25 consecutive trading days on the KOSDAQ market.
The Financial Services Commission announced an improvement plan for the listing maintenance system in February this year and decided that, starting in July, if the market capitalization remains below 20 billion won or the share price remains below 1,000 won for 30 consecutive trading days, the company will be designated as an issue under management. If it then fails to meet the relevant criteria for 45 or more trading days out of 90 trading days, delisting procedures will proceed.