SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea has secured a decisive victory in its protracted legal war with Lone Star Funds, closing a contentious chapter that has shaped the country’s financial and political landscape for more than two decades. The U.S. private equity firm—long criticized in Korea as a predatory “vulture fund”—first entered the market [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — Natural gas prices have surged to their highest level in nearly three years, lifting related exchange-traded notes (ETNs) while exposing South Korean retail investors to mounting losses after many bet on the market moving in the opposite direction. Between Nov. 1 and 14, nine of the ten best-performing ETNs in [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean individual investors’ net purchases of overseas stocks reached a new high for a half-month period in November, driven by their aggressive investment patterns, officials said Sunday. Local investors bought a net US$3.63 billion worth of foreign stocks in the first 14 days of this month, more than [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s venture investment market showed clear signs of recovery this year, with both venture investments and fund formation rising by double digits through the third quarter, government data showed Thursday. According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, total venture investment reached 9.8 trillion won (US$7.1 billion) between January [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — Forecasts for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are soaring at an unprecedented pace, with analysts projecting that the two chipmakers could generate nearly half of all corporate operating profits on South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index next year, fueled by the global boom in artificial intelligence. According to financial data provider [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — A majority of South Korea’s publicly listed companies that hold treasury shares oppose a proposed amendment to the Commercial Act that would make share cancellations mandatory, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). The proposal, now under discussion at the National Assembly, [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — President Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday instructed his economic team to explore new tax benefits for long-term retail investors, separating them from large shareholders to encourage stable investment while avoiding controversy over tax breaks for the wealthy. During a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Yongsan, Lee asked Deputy Prime [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Morgan Stanley has sharply revised upward its outlook for South Korea’s two largest chipmakers, saying the global memory semiconductor rally is being powered by surging demand from artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and cloud providers. In a report titled “Memory: The Ultimate Pricing Power,” released Tuesday, the U.S. investment bank [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — More than one in four South Korean households expect their financial situation to improve next year, even as a growing share of the population reports feeling lonely, according to a government survey released Tuesday. The biennial survey, conducted by the Ministry of Data and Statistics, found that 27 percent of [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s five largest business groups now make up more than half of the country’s total stock market capitalization, reflecting the scale of their influence amid a sharp rally in equities this year. The combined market value of listed affiliates under Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor, LG and HD Hyundai accounted [...]