CHA Vaccine shares get 18.2% bump on first trading day

Logo of CHA Vaccine Institute

CHA Vaccine Institute, the Korean vaccine maker, finished its first day of trading up 18.2 percent from its offering price of 11,000 won ($9.30).

Shares closed at 13,000 won on Friday after choppy trading.

The first day's trading ended significantly lower than other recent initial public offerings (IPOs). Hyundai Heavy Industries, which made its Kospi debut on Sept. 17, closed up 86 percent on its first trading day, and SK Bioscience closed up 160 percent in March.

Roughly 631.3 billion won worth of CHA shares were traded Friday. Retail investors net bought 29.9 billion won worth of the vaccine maker while institutions offloaded 24.2 billion won. Foreigners sold 3.3 billion won worth.

The company’s market capitalization settled at around 343.6 billion won Friday, making it the 285th largest company on the Kosdaq.

Shares opened at 11,700 won, 6.4 percent higher than the subscription price and far less than the maximum 200 percent jump recently hit by a number of public offerings in Korea.

Trading started slow, with shares falling as low as 11,200 won only two minutes after the market opened. The price continued to fluctuate until it rose as high as 14,900 won at 12:02 p.m., up 27.4 percent from the starting price, before falling again.

CHA Vaccine Institute went through its two-day public subscription period on Sept. 12 and 13 and attracted over 228.9 billion won in deposits. Shares were oversubscribed at a rate of 42.16 to 1, far lower than the IPOs of other biopharmaceutical companies such as SK Bioscience, which was oversubscribed 335 times, and HK inno.N, which was oversubscribed 389 times.

Established in 2000, the Seongnam, Gyeonggi-based biotechnology company conducts research and develops a broad range of vaccine and treatments targeting infectious and chronic diseases. CHA Biotech owns 38.9 percent of the company.

CHA Vaccine Institute’s candidates include therapeutic vaccines for chronic hepatitis B, herpes zoster and influenza. In case of chronic hepatitis B, there’s no cure to date. If the company succeeds in commercializing its candidate, it will be the first such vaccine in the world. It is currently undergoing Phase 2 clinical trials locally, with the aim of concluding by 2023.

The vaccine maker reported a 6.24-billion-won net loss in 2020 and a 3-billion-won net loss in 2019. It said it is optimistic about going into the black in 2023.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]