This weekly newsletter pulls together summaries of the top ten most-read Insights across Event-Driven and Index Rebalance on Smartkarma.
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1. The Biggish Sep 2024 “Thursday-Friday Trade”
- Every year it’s the same trade. This year it is Thursday and Friday. There is some funkiness to Monday too.
- There is meaningful directional buying on one day, which then kind of gets stretched a bit. This year, circumstances suggest high confidence buying should be at the top end.
- This year, because circumstances, I expect the trade is a lot larger than last year. I’d say ¥1.6trln.
2. China’s [Maybe] Biggish [Quasi?] Bazooka
- Today, in a press conference held jointly by the Governor of the PBOC, the Director of the Financial Regulatory Bureau, and Chairman of the CSRC, China announced market stimulus measures.
- The PBOC will cut RRR 50bp, the 7-day repo rate 20bp, guide effective mortgage rate cuts, and lower minimum down payments on second homes. There are other commercial RE measures.
- Three major stock market measures were announced. A RMB500bn collateral swap programme, PBOC backing RMB300bn bank loans for corps to buy stocks, and a Plan to increase Central Huijin investments.
3. Korea Zinc’s Latest Shareholder Roll & MBK’s Triggers to Sweeten Tender Price
- MBK is watching for a 1 million share trading volume, as that may prompt neutral institutional investors to sell rather than participate in the tender, triggering a price hike.
- MBK may raise the tender price to ₩900,000, a 35% jump, with a local pension fund CIO suggesting it’s the sweet spot for participation.
- MBK believes securing the minimum target would give them 44% voting rights, enough to push their proposals, indicating they’ll go all-in for that 7% stake in this first attempt.
4. Korea Exchange Announces The Korea Value Up Index
- Korea Exchange announced the long awaited Korea Value Up Index (“K Value Up Index”) (composed of 100 stocks) today.
- Korea Exchange used a 5-step screening process to select the 100 companies in this index including market cap, profitability, shareholder returns, market evaluation, and capital efficiency.
- This Value Up index is part of the bigger “Corporate Value Up ” program in Korea. These efforts to improve Korea’s corporate governance policies is a marathon, not a sprint.
5. Tech: Japan’s Biggest IPO in 6 Years, Kioxia, Is Off. Here Is the Likely Reason
- Significant peer price performance declines leaves IPO valuation stretched, the desired discount multiple to attract interest has suddenly become a premium
- Investor interest in memory semiconductors, AI derivative stocks has cooled
- Peer price sell-offs are extreme but could quickly change, reflecting the highly cyclical nature of the sector
6. STAR50/STAR100 Index Rebalance Preview: Massive Outperformance in Last Two Months; Time to Unwind?
- 90% of the way through the review period, there could be 1 change for the SSE STAR50 (STAR50 INDEX) and 5 changes for the STAR100 Index.
- We estimate turnover of 1% for the STAR50 INDEX and 5.5% for the STAR100 Index. The net round-trip trade is CNY 3.2bn (US$453m).
- The forecast add to the SSE STAR50 (STAR50 INDEX) has massively outperformed the forecast deletion from the index over the last two months.
7. KOSDAQ150 Index Adhoc Rebalance: HLB Therapeutics Replaces Jeisys Medical
- HLB Therapeutics (115450 KS) will replace Jeisys Medical (287410 KS) in the KOSDAQ 150 Index (KOSDQ150 INDEX) next week.
- Passive trackers will need to buy 1.8 days of ADV in HLB Therapeutics (115450 KS) and sell over 4 days of ADV in Jeisys Medical (287410 KS).
- Recent ad hoc inclusions to the KOSDAQ 150 Index (KOSDQ150 INDEX) have jumped post announcement of index inclusion but have sold off after the inclusion.
8. All the Scoop on the Korea Value-Up Index
- The index focuses on qualitative factors like capital efficiency and shareholder returns, but efforts to impose sector balance may have overextended its market benchmark role.
- Some companies not fitting the ‘value-up’ narrative got included, while market favorites were sidelined by sector rankings, which is puzzling given the index’s original goal.
- Still, with rebalancing cut down to once a year, we should expect the flow impact on the index names to hit harder than initially thought compared to their sector peers.
9. What Are Locals Saying About Potential Allies to Choi Family in Fight for Korea Zinc?
- In this insight, we discuss three particular allies that could help the Choi family that have been highlighted by the local media including Hanwha, KIS, and Softbank.
- The Hanwha Group is one of the largest shareholders of Korea Zinc. In addition, Hanwha Group Vice Chairman Kim Dong-Kwan has a close relationship with Korea Zinc Chairman Choi Yoon-Beom.
- Korea Zinc is planning to hold an important press conference on the 24 September to reveal its position on the tender offer of Korea Zinc shares by MBK.
10. MBK Raises Tender Prices: ₩750,000 for Korea Zinc & ₩25,000 for Young Poong Precision
- Hankyung reports MBK will raise Korea Zinc’s tender offer to ₩750,000 (14%) and Young Poong Precision’s to ₩25,000 (25%) before today’s market opens.
- Hankyung and Maeil are top sources for market scoops, so it’s almost certain MBK leaked the tender price hike ahead of today’s trading.
- MBK leaves Choi just five trading days to respond. Korea Zinc plans to raise ₩400 billion, but it’s still not enough for a counter-bid.
