South Korea’s data centre firm Elice saw its shares jump 30% in Wednesday’s trade on October 21, to 79,900 won, rebounding from a slump during its market debut on Tuesday.
The recovery has offered some relief to retail investors, who were the biggest participants in Elice’s IPO. The Seoul-based neocloud service provider made a weak debut on the Kosdaq, listing at a steep 33% discount to its IPO price despite raising about $151 million in what was marked as the exchange’s largest IPO of the year.
Elice shares fell as much as 32% to 61,400 won in early trading on October 20. The company priced its shares at 90,500 won apiece, at the top of the marketed price range, giving it a post-listing market capitalisation of more than 1 trillion won.
The weak debut came at a time when global semiconductor stocks were under pressure amid expectations of higher interest rates and concerns about the sustainability of AI infrastructure spending.
Elice raised about $150 million through its IPO and said it planned to spend most of the proceeds on launching portable modular data centres and developing related infrastructure.