In order to be listed on the KRX’s ETN market, certain requirements on issuers, underlying indices and details of issuance must be met.
- Requirements on the qualification of issuers
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As ETNs are issued based on the credit of issuers, KRX imposes strict financial requirements on the issuers:
- A financial investment corporation that has been licensed to conduct the business of trading of securities and over-the-counter derivatives products
- Equity capital of at least KRW 500 billion
- Credit rating of AA- or above
- NCR of at least 150%
- Unqualified opinions by auditors for the recent 3 years
- Requirements on underlying indices
- An index that represents the overall price movement of underlying assets that are traded in the KRX market
- An underlying index that represents the price movement of underlying assets that are traded in foreign securities exchange markets recognized by the KRX
- In case where the underlying index includes domestic and foreign stocks or bonds, the underlying index must include at least 5 stocks and 5 bonds, respectively, and the proportion of a constituent must be at most 30% to ensure diversification (if an index consists of government bonds, monetary stabilization bonds and municipal bonds only, then the number of constituents must be 3 or more, the ratio of same issues, being less than 30%, requirement is not applied. In addition, if indices are constituted exclusively of stocks traded on overseas stock markets, the minimum number of constituent stocks shall be 3 and none of the constituent stocks shall exceed 50% of the index by weight).
- Requirements on issuance
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As to a newly listed ETN, the issuing amount must be at least KRW 7 billion and the number of the notes issued must be at least 100,000. It is to avoid the excessive issuance of small-sized ETNs and secure high liquidity of traded ETNs. Also, the total amount of an ETN is limited to 50% of issur’s equity capital in order to prevent the excessive credit risk exposure.
- Requirements on maturity, agreement on index utilization and liquidity provision
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The maturity of ETNs may range from 1 to 20 years. ETNs must be issued through a deemed public offering where the issuer or liquidity providers hold the entire quantity of the issued ETNs without the public subscription process and the public sales occurs after the listing. In addition, the issuer must enter into an agreement on index utilization with an institution that has a legal authority regarding the indices to make the information related to indices available for investors’ utilization in real time. (However, an exception is allowed when a new-listing applicant directly calculates indices.) The issuer must make a liquidity provision contract in order to supply enough liquidity or the issuer should provide liquidity for itself.