In what may rank as the most petite GDR of the year, JPMorgan has launched a $30 million issue for Kumgang Korea Chemical.
The company is a Korean market leader in paints and building products and is popular with major institutional investors such as Capital and Fidelity - with foreign institutions owning about 40% of the company.
The timing of the GDR may strike some as strange. In fact, it is a legacy of a merger done in 2000 in which the company acquired Korea Chemical and was forced to buy back 13.1% of the company from dissenting shareholders and hold it as treasury stock. Regulations state that it must...
