Fingerstory Passes Preliminary Review for KOSDAQ Listing

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Global Tax Free (GTF) announced on the 22nd that its subsidiary, webtoon and web novel content company Fingerstory, has passed the preliminary review for KOSDAQ listing and will be listed on the KOSDAQ market within this year.

The KOSDAQ Market Headquarters of the Korea Exchange held a KOSDAQ Market Listing Committee meeting the day before and approved the preliminary review for the SPAC merger listing of Fingerstory. The special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that Fingerstory is merging with is Yuanta No.7 SPAC.

Fingerstory, a subsidiary of Global Tax Free, submitted an application for preliminary review for listing to the Korea Exchange on April 28 to list on KOSDAQ through a SPAC merger.

The SPAC merger structure is different from before, as Fingerstory will absorb and merge with Yuanta No.7 SPAC, a KOSDAQ listed company. Since the exchange reformed the system in February to allow listing by choosing between SPAC dissolution and survival mergers, it has become possible for the SPAC to dissolve while the existing company maintains its corporate status.

The merger ratio is 1 to 0.4789272, and the merger date is scheduled for October 24. The new shares issued through the merger amount to 2,634,099 shares, and the expected listing date of the new shares is November 9. After listing, Fingerstory will secure approximately 10.7 billion KRW in cash liquidity held by Yuanta No.7 SPAC.

Established in March 2018, Fingerstory distributes content such as webtoons, comics, and web novels across various genres. At its founding, it launched 'Mutoon,' an online webtoon platform specialized in martial arts and action genres. Additionally, in May 2020, it unveiled 'Qtoon,' a webtoon platform targeting female readers, which are operated separately. Recently, Fingerstory has begun generating secondary revenue through the production of its own intellectual property (IP) works, distributing multiple titles including 'Sotttukjeongseol' on major platforms such as KakaoPage, Naver Series, and Mr. Blue.

After the merger listing, Fingerstory plans to expand its business capabilities as a comprehensive content company through investments in platform business and production of its own content IP. Previously, Fingerstory achieved a turnaround to profitability in 2020 and recorded sales of 16.3 billion KRW and operating profit of 1.2 billion KRW last year.

Ra Hyun-sung, CEO of Fingerstory, said, "With the KOSDAQ listing, our corporate value will be properly evaluated in the stock market," adding, "We plan to improve internal controls and management environment to meet investors' demands with the goal of listing within this year."

He continued, "The funds raised through the listing will be used to build studios, secure new IP works, enhance information security and content sophistication, and activate the platform, thereby raising corporate value to the next level."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.