Firms Suffering from Chronic Deficits
About 30 companies listed on the secondary KOSDAQ market, which suffer from chronic deficits, are facing designation as administrative issues. They had posted an operating loss for three consecutive years from 2015 to 2017 and if they failed to earn a profit last year again, they will become administrative issues.
If these firms are designated as administrative issues and still fail to turn around this year, they will be subject to a fit-and-proper review for listing by Korea Exchange (KRX) and be granted a grace period before being officially delisted from the stock market.
As the deadline for submission of the 2018 business reports is April 1 for companies that settle accounts in December, KOSDAQ-listed companies which stand at the crossroads of delisting are beginning to come into view.
Digital Optics Co. and Solco Biomedical Co. were designated by KRX as companies that can possibly become administrative issues due to their operating losses until last year and trading of the two companies’ shares were once halted. NexStreaming Corp., Skymoons Technology Inc. and Aprogen Healthcare & Games (H&G) Inc. also disclosed that they recorded an operating loss for four years in a row.
In addition, KRX will decide on whether the six companies which have already been designated as administrative issues after recording losses for four consecutive years from 2014 to 2017, including S-Mark Co., will be delisted from the market depending on their performance last year. Seven other companies which has more than 50 percent of equity capital during two out of three business years and posted a loss in continued business before corporate taxes of over 1 billion won (US$889.600) meet the requirements of delisting when they show any reason to be designated as the issues for administration once again as of the 2018 business year. Companies can be delisted immediately without being designated as administrative issues when external auditors issue the non-proper opinion.