자본시장의 ‘살생부’가 현실이 되다: 상장폐지 칼바람과 투자자의 생존 전략 > K-wave Trends

The core of the delisting reform plan promoted by financial authorities is ‘prompt resolution of insolvent companies.’ Particularly notable changes are the establishment of new requirements for the exclusion of ‘coin stocks’, which have been considered a nuisance in the market, and a significant increase in the market capitalization standard. In the case of the KOSDAQ market, the market capitalization standard is scheduled to increase to 30 billion won starting next year, and from the second half of this year, companies with less than 20 billion won will be subject to delisting review. In response to this, many companies are struggling to survive by forcibly raising their stock prices or increasing their par value through stock mergers. However, experts warn that such stock mergers are nothing more than ‘peeing on one’s feet’ without improving the fundamentals of the company, that is, strengthening its fundamentals. Ultimately, the harsh reality is that unless a company can prove a sustainable profit model, a temporary boost in stock prices will only be the beginning of another decline.

The blade of delisting is not limited to individual companies, but is also extending to derivatives markets such as ETFs and ETNs. The Korea Exchange announced a new rule that will delist leveraged and inverse products that use a single stock as an underlying asset if the market capitalization proportion and trading volume are insufficient. This can be interpreted as an intention to improve the soundness of the market and provide safe products with guaranteed liquidity to investors. However, these regulations may pose an unexpected risk of liquidation to investors who are pursuing active investment strategies using derivatives. Now, investors are faced with the task of going beyond simply predicting the direction of the underlying asset and having to monitor changes in the exchange's disclosures in real time to ensure that the products they have invested in do not meet the requirements for delisting.

Meanwhile, delisting issues that have escalated into legal battles are acting as a factor that maximizes uncertainty in the market. Recently, companies such as Celestra and TS NexGen protested against the Korea Exchange's decision to delist and filed applications for temporary injunction with the court, leading to a series of cases where scheduled liquidation sales were put on hold. This shows that complex interests between companies, exchanges, and investors are intertwined until the final stage of delisting. Investors whose trading is left suspended until the court's decision is issued virtually suffer the pain of having their funds tied up, and are put in an extreme situation where they can either be reduced to nothing or recover by the outcome of the trial. In this way, the legal battle during the delisting process clearly reveals the point where the two values ​​of protecting investors and establishing strict order in the market clash.

Turning to the global market, the conflict between blockchain projects and exchanges also shows another side of delisting. The case of a specific stablecoin known to be linked to the Trump family being delisted from the HTX exchange clearly shows how political and geopolitical risks are projected onto the cryptocurrency market. In the name of compliance with sanctions, blockchain addresses are frozen, and authority conflicts between exchanges and project teams arise, putting users' property rights under direct threat. Although this is a different form of traditional stock market delisting, the impact on investors of a centralized exchange's decision and issuer control is essentially the same. Ultimately, we are left with a lesson that investment in projects without technical trust and institutional safety nets can be met with delisting at any time.