IPO fundraising halves as big-name listings dry up, but retail competition heats up

Total initial public offering proceeds through the third quarter of this year fell more than half compared with the same period last year.

The market shrank sharply as large-cap listings became scarce, yet retail investors competed more fiercely than ever for IPO shares. With the number of newly listed companies picking up in the third quarter, attention is now turning to whether the IPO market can stage a recovery in the fourth quarter.

According to IR Cuders' "2026 Third-Quarter Cumulative IPO Review" released Wednesday, 33 companies went public in the first three quarters of this year, raising a combined 1.63 trillion won ($1.2 billion). The figures exclude SPAC listings, Konex listings and re-listings. The number of newly listed companies fell 40.0 percent from the same period last year, while total proceeds dropped 52.1 percent.

One company listed on the Kospi and 32 on the Kosdaq. The market lacked a blockbuster deal comparable to LG CNS, which raised 1.2 trillion won in last year's comparable period, and the overall number of listings also declined. Still, about half of this year's newly listed companies — 16 in total — debuted in the third quarter, making it a more active stretch than the first half.

Despite the drop in offering volume, the average retail subscription competition rate rose to 1,316.2-to-1 from 976.6-to-1 last year. Some 21 companies, or 63.6 percent of all listings, exceeded a 1,000-to-1 ratio. Madup posted the highest rate at 3,305-to-1, followed by Polred at 3,169.9-to-1.

The average institutional book-building competition rate slipped to 813.1-to-1 from 869.9-to-1 last year. The share of companies that set their final offering price at or above the top of their indicative range also fell 6.0 percentage points to 75.8 percent. The average mandatory lock-up commitment ratio, however, surged to 27.2 percent from 9.7 percent. IR Cuders attributed the jump to the continued effect of the priority allocation system for lock-up commitments.

The average first-day opening gain over the offering price came in at 126.8 percent, far above last year's 65.6 percent. Axbis, IMBiologics, Polred and MakinaRocks each posted a 300 percent opening gain. The share of companies whose opening price exceeded their offering price fell to 75.8 percent from 85.5 percent, however, suggesting that sharp gains by a handful of stocks inflated the overall average.

Attention will focus on whether the recovery in small- and mid-cap IPOs continues into the fourth quarter. Preliminary listing review applications rose from 11 in the first quarter to 37 in the second, and reached 29 in the third quarter as of Tuesday.

IR Cuders forecast that IPO schedules could cluster in the early-to-mid fourth quarter as companies rush to complete listings before the introduction of a pre-deal investor education system and cornerstone investor regime. Whether any large-scale IPOs materialize, and how the new rules reshape offering price calculations, are seen as the key variables shaping the year-end market.

IR Cuders also recently published a report titled "Is IR a Cost or an Investment?" analyzing the relationship between investor relations activities and corporate value among domestically listed companies. The report empirically examined the link between IR activity and corporate value at 2,546 Kospi- and Kosdaq-listed companies from the first quarter of 2021 through the fourth quarter of 2025. It used Tobin's Q — a ratio comparing market value to book value — as the corporate value metric, and factored in key variables including company size, profitability, growth and research and development intensity to assess the effect of IR activity.