Stock and Corporate Bond Issuance Falls 15% in First Half; Short-Term Corporate Bonds Reach 990 Trillion Won

[Financial News] In the first half of this year, companies' public issuance of stocks and corporate bonds fell by more than 15% from a year earlier. In contrast, issuance of commercial paper (CP) and short-term corporate bonds rose 68.0%.
According to the "2026 First-Half Corporate Direct Financing Results" released by the Financial Supervisory Service on the 4th, public issuance of stocks and corporate bonds from January to June totaled 126.5754 trillion won. That was down 23.357 trillion won, or 15.6%, from 149.9324 trillion won a year earlier.
Stock issuance came to 2.9786 trillion won, down 1.2551 trillion won, or 29.6%, from a year earlier. Initial public offerings (IPOs) totaled 28 cases and 1.0141 trillion won, with issuance down 30.0%. The decline reflected the fact that IPOs on the Korea Exchange Main Board were limited to one case, K Bank, worth 249 billion won, and were concentrated in small and mid-sized offerings. Paid-in Capital Increase came to 23 cases and 1.9645 trillion won, down 820.1 billion won, or 29.5%, from a year earlier.
Corporate bond issuance totaled 123.5968 trillion won, down 22.1018 trillion won, or 15.2%, from a year earlier. General corporate bond issuance fell sharply by 31.5% to 25.9052 trillion won.
Maturities in the first half reached 35.5044 trillion won, exceeding new issuance. As a result, general corporate bonds recorded a net redemption of 9.5992 trillion won.
By use of funds, refinancing accounted for 72.9% of issuance, the highest share, though that was 8.0 percentage points lower than 80.9% a year earlier.
By credit rating, AA-rated bonds and above accounted for 76.9% of the total, up 4.2 percentage points from a year earlier. In contrast, the share of A-rated bonds fell 3.1 percentage points to 21.0%, while bonds rated BBB and below accounted for just 2.2%.
Financial bonds issuance fell 7.2% from a year earlier to 90.4157 trillion won. Financial holding company bonds, at 7.879 trillion won, rose 3.2%, while bank bonds, at 28.0022 trillion won, increased 0.9%. On the other hand, issuance of credit card company bonds and installment finance company bonds fell 11.7% and 11.9%, respectively. Asset-backed securities (ABS) issuance dropped 30.6% to 7.2759 trillion won.
Total issuance of CP and short-term corporate bonds in the first half reached 1,272.8483 trillion won, up 515.1069 trillion won, or 68.0%, from 757.7414 trillion won a year earlier.
Issuance of short-term corporate bonds rose 90.4% from a year earlier to 990.936 trillion won.
As of the end of June, the outstanding balance of CP stood at 241.4883 trillion won, up 11.8% from the end of the first half last year. The outstanding balance of short-term corporate bonds rose 39.2% to 111.23 trillion won. Total outstanding corporate bonds increased 5.1% from a year earlier to 757.239 trillion won.


[email protected] Kim Mi-hee Reporter