Foreign investors are still in love with Kakao

Foreign investors’ love for Kakao seems to be showing no signs of a letup on expectations that the operator of KakaoTalk may get a further boost from its lucrative platform, content and fintech-related businesses, main bourse data showed Tuesday.

From July 1 to Dec. 2, foreigners net purchased Kakao stocks worth 747 billion won ($629 million), second to Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ 947 billion won, according to the data compiled by the Korea Exchange.

Their buying of Kakao reached 106 billion won in October, 143 billion won in September, 136 billion won in August and 148 billion won in July.

Foreigners continued to pick Kakao by net buying some 179.2 billion won worth of Kakao stocks during the Nov. 7 to Dec. 2 period, when they sold over 4 trillion won worth of local stocks for 18 consecutive days, the longest in four years.

Kakao’s stock price jumped 20.8 percent from July 1 to Dec. 2 to close at 156,500 won.

Foreigners’ growing appetite for Kakao came as they bet its earnings will further improve down the road, aided by robust performance of its platform businesses and expectations about its online banking business.

Kakao’s net profit in the July-September period skyrocketed to 51.1 billion won on a consolidated basis, nearly six times higher than a year earlier, according to filings.

Yonhap