Fino Falls 19% After a ₩183 Billion Preferred Share Deal

Shares of Fino Inc., a KOSDAQ-listed battery-materials company whose largest shareholders are Hong Kong units of China's CNGR Advanced Material, fell 19.04% to ₩6,760 ($4.98) on Nov. 6, 2026. It was the stock's first trading day after Fino agreed to sell ₩183.0 billion ($134.9 million) of new preferred shares to 15 investors at ₩7,983 each, and the stock closed 15.3% below that price.

The stock, code 033790 and sometimes romanized as Pino in English-language press, had closed at ₩8,350 on Nov. 4, when its board approved the deal. The KOSDAQ market division halted trading at 7:52 a.m. on Nov. 5 to check whether the deal amounted to a backdoor listing, in which an unlisted business reaches the market by taking control of a listed company, and lifted the halt for Nov. 6 after finding it did not.

Trading resumed into a falling market. The KOSDAQ dropped 5.03% to 644.27 on Nov. 6, and Samsung SDI, which bought new Fino shares in March 2026, fell 8.84%, the Financial News reported.

Fino traded as low as ₩6,230, down 25.4%, and ₩23.3 billion ($17.2 million) of its shares changed hands, according to Hankyung market data. At the close, its 86,012,953 common shares were worth about ₩581 billion ($429 million). Dollar figures use ₩1,356.6 per dollar, the rate quoted in Seoul at 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, 2026, according to Yonhap.

The money is "funding to improve the fundamentals of the secondary battery business and to flesh out our growth strategy," a Fino official told Edaily, in remarks translated from Korean. "Based on the funds secured, we will push ahead with building production facilities and acquiring stakes in overseas subsidiaries without disruption to maximize medium- to long-term corporate value," the official said.

The Deal Terms

Redeemable convertible preferred shares, or RCPS, can be converted into common stock by the holder or bought back for cash by the issuer. Fino's carry one vote each and a preferred dividend of 0.1% of the issue price a year, according to its Nov. 5 filing.

Converted in full, they would add 26.65% to the current share count. The stake of Zoomwe Hong Kong New Energy Technology, Fino's largest shareholder, will fall from 24.82% to 19.59% after the issue, Edaily reported. Zoomwe and a sister company, CNGR Hong Kong Hongchuang New Energy, held 36.71% together at June 30, 2026.

With no reset, conversion pays off for the funds only if the common stock trades above ₩7,983. Two funds managed by Wonik Investment Partners take 4,008,517 shares, about ₩32.0 billion ($23.6 million), and funds run by Q Capital Partners and Ascent Private Equity take about ₩20.0 billion ($14.7 million) each, the filing shows.

The price is the highest of Fino's three share sales in 2026. In March, Fino sold 14,294,467 common shares at ₩4,897 ($3.61) for ₩70.0 billion ($51.6 million), including 6,126,200 shares, about ₩30.0 billion ($22.1 million), to Samsung SDI.

In August, it agreed to sell 2,691,066 shares at ₩5,574 ($4.11) for ₩15.0 billion ($11.1 million) to Cosmo Advanced Materials & Technology, a cathode maker. The issue price has risen 63% since March.

Korea context: All three deals were third-party allotments, in which a Korean company sells new shares to investors it chooses rather than to all shareholders. The March and August prices were set at a 10% discount to a reference price based on recent weighted-average trading prices, under the Financial Services Commission's issuance rules, while the November price carries a premium. Each filing provides for a one-year lock-up, and the November filing says that lock-up is why Fino did not have to file a securities registration statement.

What the Company Does

Fino was founded in February 1990 to make mobile-network repeaters and listed on the KOSDAQ, Korea's market for smaller and growth companies, on June 26, 2001. Zoomwe Hong Kong became its largest shareholder on June 26, 2024, and the company changed its name from Skymoons Technology to Fino on Aug. 14, 2024, its half-year report shows.

It now sells precursors, the nickel, cobalt and manganese compounds from which lithium-ion battery cathode materials are made. Precursors and related materials supplied 99.86% of its ₩213.5 billion ($157.4 million) in first-half 2026 revenue, while a mobile game business brought in ₩762,000.

Its disclosed supply contracts in 2026 have all been with L&F, a Korean cathode maker. The four deals for NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) precursors, signed between January and April, were worth $61.0 million in total, or ₩90.1 billion at the rates in the filings, and each lists the supply method as outsourced production rather than in-house manufacturing.

Merchandise, meaning goods Fino bought and resold rather than made, accounted for 47.9% of first-half revenue, according to the report's sales table. The company says it buys materials "wholesale" and supplies them while "taking responsibility for their transport and quality," or has them processed through "outsourced production" first (translated from Korean).

Its next step is a plant of its own. Fino's subsidiary CNP New Material Technology is building a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode plant in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, with capacity planned to rise in stages to as much as 50,000 tons a year, Edaily reported in August 2026.

POSCO Future M, which set up the venture with CNGR in 2023, planned in December 2025 to invest more in it, and mass production was then scheduled to start in the second half of 2027, the Asia Business Daily reported. Fino raised its stake from 29% to 75% on June 16, 2026, buying 1,405,752 shares for ₩28.2 billion ($20.8 million) from CNGR Hong Kong Hongchuang, which the filing lists as a related party of Fino's largest shareholder.

On Nov. 6, Fino also agreed to put $38 million into FINO NEW ENERGY, a Singapore holding and trading subsidiary set up in April 2026, by Dec. 31, 2026. The filing converts that to ₩51.0 billion and gives the purpose as securing investment funds for the new-materials business.

Earnings and Cash

Revenue rose to ₩264.8 billion ($195.2 million) in 2025 from ₩30.7 billion ($22.6 million) in 2024, which the company attributed to the expansion of its battery business. It blamed its 2025 net loss of ₩5.85 billion ($4.3 million) on interest on convertible bonds and higher derivative valuation losses, and its commodity futures lost a net ₩10.7 billion ($7.9 million), more than its ₩8.85 billion operating profit.

Revenue more than doubled from a year earlier to ₩104.4 billion ($77.0 million) in the second quarter of 2026. Operating profit was ₩2.32 billion ($1.7 million), a margin of 2.23%, down from 8.68% in the first quarter, when Fino earned ₩9.47 billion on ₩109.1 billion of revenue.

A ₩4.0 billion equity-method loss, Fino's share of losses at companies it partly owned, left a second-quarter net loss of ₩1.74 billion ($1.3 million). The half-year report does not explain the lower margin; under Korea's disclosure form standards, it says, quarterly and half-year reports do not include management's discussion and analysis.

The balance sheet is stronger after the share sales. Cash and cash equivalents more than doubled to ₩114.2 billion ($84.2 million) at June 30, 2026 from ₩47.3 billion at the end of 2025, and liabilities stood at 18.34% of equity.

Earnings Per Share

Fino lost ₩135 ($0.10) per share in 2025, after losses of ₩123 in 2024 and ₩114 in 2023, according to FnGuide data on Naver Finance. Earnings per share (EPS) is net profit attributable to shareholders divided by the share count, so revenue growth has not yet reached shareholders on a per-share basis.

The first half of 2026 was mixed. EPS was ₩130 in the first quarter and a loss of ₩21 in the second, for ₩109 ($0.08) over the half. Because 2025 ended in a loss and FnGuide lists no brokerage estimate for 2026, a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) is not meaningful for now.

The new preferred shares matter for future EPS. If all of them were converted into common stock, the 26.65% rise in the share count would cut any given profit per share by about a fifth, by our calculation.

What to Watch

The first date is Nov. 27, 2026, when the investors are due to pay ₩183.0 billion. The third-quarter report will then show whether the operating margin recovered from 2.23%, though it will carry no management explanation.

Shareholders on record as of Nov. 23, 2026 can vote at an extraordinary meeting on Dec. 21, 2026. The agenda covers the election of directors and an auditor, stock option grants and changes to the articles of incorporation, with details yet to be set, the Nov. 6 notice says.

Taken together, Fino is raising ₩183.0 billion at a premium to build a plant and buy overseas stakes, while its second-quarter margin fell to 2.23% and nearly half its first-half revenue came from goods it bought and resold. The first test is the Nov. 27, 2026 payment date.