S. Korea ELS issue falls 45% in 2020, Kospi 200 favoured

South Korea’s equity-linked securities (ELS) issuance in 2020 has fallen to a record low in four years at KRW42.3 trillion (US$38bn), down 44.8% year-on-year (YoY). In the meantime, equity-linked bonds (ELBs) reached a five-year peak at KRW26.7 trillion, up 15.2%. Together they represented a decrease of 30.9% YoY as the market featuring autocallable payoff was heavily hit by the sell-off of March 2020, according to data from the Korea Securities Depository. Approximately 68.1% of the tot