Shares of major parent companies that pursued duplicate listings have yet to recover. While the KOSPI, once trapped in a narrow range, has surged past 6,000 and resumed its record-setting rally, the lingering fallout from duplicate listings continues to weigh on their stock prices. With financial authorities having declared a “principled ban” on such listings, some argue that exception-approval procedures must be designed strictly to ensure the policy achieves its intended effect.
Clockwise from top left: Kakao Agit, SK Chemicals headquarters, LG Twin Towers and SK Seorin Building. / News1
According to the Korea Exchange on April 22, the parent companies of 20 large conglomerate affiliates that pursued duplicate listings between 2020 and 2025—excluding cases involving transfer listings, holding companies and unlisted parent companies—saw their share prices fall by an average of 5.5% six months after their subsidiaries went public. This underperformed the average 2.0% gain in the relevant market indices, the KOSPI and KOSDAQ, over the same period by more than 7 percentage points. By company count, 15 of the 20 parent companies, including overlapping cases, underperformed the KOSPI and KOSDAQ.
Duplicate listing refers to the separate listing of both a parent company and its subsidiary. Because profits must be shared following the simultaneous listings, the practice is viewed as a negative factor for the parent company’s share price. According to the Financial Services Commission, Korea’s duplicate-listing ratio—the value of listed companies’ stakes in listed subsidiaries as a percentage of total market capitalization—stood at 11.2% at the end of last year, far higher than in major markets such as the United States at 0.05%, Japan at 4.0%, China at 2.4% and Taiwan at 2.7%.
The problem is that many parent companies that pursued duplicate listings have still failed to recover to their share-price levels immediately before their subsidiaries went public. Kakao’s share price stood at 77,075 won, on an adjusted-price basis, just before the listing of Kakao Games in September 2020. Five years and seven months later, however, it is trading at 48,850 won, down 36.6%.
Compared with the trading day immediately before the listings of KakaoBank and Kakao Pay in August and November of the following year, respectively, Kakao’s share price is down 67.2% and 61.8%. Kakao Games, KakaoBank and Kakao Pay, all spun off from Kakao, are also trading below their IPO prices. In effect, Kakao Group’s duplicate listings have inflicted losses not only on shareholders of the parent company, but also on shareholders of the subsidiaries.
The same is true of SK Group. When SK Bioscience went public in March 2021, shares of its parent company SK Chemicals traded at 212,170 won. They have since shrunk to 57,800 won, roughly a quarter of that level. SK Innovation, the parent company of SK IE Technology, which listed in May of the same year, has also seen its share price tumble 53.1%, from 274,523 won just before the duplicate listing to 128,800 won now.
SK Inc.’s share price did rise last year, helped by a broader investment boom in holding companies across the stock market. But compared with July 2020, when its subsidiary SK Biopharmaceuticals went public, the stock is up only 26.9%. That is roughly one-tenth of the KOSPI’s 195.2% gain over the same period.
Parent Company Share Price Changes After Duplicate Listings / By Yoon Seung-jun
LG Chem, the parent company of LG Energy Solution, whose listing triggered controversy over duplicate listings, has also yet to recover its share price. LG Chem shares stood at 664,000 won just before LG Energy Solution went public, but now trade at 365,500 won, nearly half that level. LG Corp. has also risen only 29.9% since the listing of LG CNS in February last year, underperforming the KOSPI’s 150.6% gain over the same period by more than 120 percentage points.
Other cases show a similar pattern. DL Corp.’s share price fell 2.4% after the listing of its subsidiary DL E&C. SM Entertainment, the parent company of DearU; Hankook Tire & Technology, the parent company of Model Solution; SK Discovery, the parent company of SK Eternix; and GS Corp., the parent company of GS P&L, saw their share prices rise after their subsidiaries went public, but their gains still lagged the relevant market index over the same period.
This is why financial authorities have moved to put the brakes on duplicate listings. The criticism is that repeated subsidiary listings have damaged shareholder value at parent companies, yet such cases were not properly filtered out during the listing-review process. In March, the Financial Services Commission said it would strictly review duplicate listings under a stance of “principled prohibition with exceptions allowed” during the Korea Exchange’s listing review process, and that the rules would cover not only spun-off subsidiaries but also acquired and newly established subsidiaries.
Large conglomerates have engaged in duplicate listings for many years. According to Korea Exchange data, there are a total of 262 listed companies belonging to 43 business groups, averaging six listed firms per group. SK had the most with 21, followed by Samsung with 17, Hyundai Department Store with 13, Hyundai Motor with 12, LG with 12, Hanwha with 12, Hyosung with 11, Lotte with 11, LS with 10 and Kakao with 10.
Some argue that to improve the effectiveness of the policy, authorities must go beyond simply declaring a principled ban and establish clear standards for applying exceptions.
“One reason behind the low PBRs of holding companies has long been cited as their structure of having many listed subsidiaries and sub-subsidiaries. Recently, the negative spillover effect, in which bad news from one affiliate within the same group spreads to the share prices of other listed affiliates, has also intensified,” said Lee Chang-min, a professor of business administration at Hanyang University. “For exceptions to duplicate listings, procedural safeguards such as a majority-of-minority vote are needed, rather than abstract criteria such as managerial independence.”
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