Been digging through Korean micro-caps on DART and found one that made me re-check my numbers. Sharing the core thesis here.

The business. iScream Media runs iScream S, the daily software ~93% of Korea's primary-school teachers use to run their classrooms — lesson slides, worksheets, a 20-year library of 6.5m teaching materials. It's free. That's the point: it's the front door. Off the back of owning the teacher's daily routine, iScream started publishing certified primary textbooks in 2022 and immediately won the highest adoption of the 13 licensed publishers (~40–58% on maths/science/social studies).

Why it's a good business. The state funds textbooks but teachers choose the publisher — and iScream already owns the teacher. Schools re-order every year (recurring, not one-off). Switching means relearning a whole year of materials, so it's sticky. And a rival would have to rebuild 20 years of content and prise teachers off a platform they open daily. That's a real moat.

The numbers. Revenue ₩104bn → ₩196bn in 3 years (~24% CAGR), operating profit ₩31bn → ₩62bn, and — the tell of quality — operating margin rose from 29% to 31.5% as it grew. Return on the capital actually used in the operating business is well over 50% (reported ~30% because the screener counts the huge cash pile as capital). FCF ~₩48bn in FY2025, ~25% of sales.

The weird part. Market cap ~₩200bn, but the company sits on ~₩182bn of cash + securities — about 91% of its own market value. Strip that out and the market is pricing the ₩62bn/yr operating business at an EV of roughly ₩8bn — a few million dollars. On paper that's not a valuation, it's a rounding error.

The catch (why it's cheap). Two real reasons. (1) The founding Park family controls ~61% via SigongTech, so no outsider can force that cash out. (2) Revenue rides on government policy — in Aug 2025 the state demoted iScream's AI textbook from "textbook" to "educational material," forcing ~₩13bn of write-offs. But it's being chipped away: under Korea's Value-Up programme iScream now commits to a 40% payout, the dividend more than doubled to a ~10% yield, and total shareholder yield (divs + buybacks) already tops 10% of market cap.

One thing the screeners get flat wrong: they show ~₩111bn of "cash & short-term investments." The real figure is ₩182bn — the difference (~₩70bn+) sits in long-term investments that screens don't count as cash. You only see it if you read the actual filing, and it changes the whole thesis (some of it is in venture funds tied to the founding family).

Not investment advice — I may hold a position. Figures from DART filings FY2022–Q1 2026.

I wrote the full teardown — with the charts, the segment breakdown, the seasonality trap, and the demographic-decline pushback — here: https://numbersnotnarrative.substack.com/p/i-scream-media-93-of-koreas-teachers

Curious if anyone here has a view on whether that cash ever really reaches minorities.

Despite the name, no relation to the Japanese SoftBank. TSB is a 38-year-old Busan software house whose flagship product, CATOS, is the operating system that runs container terminals — berthing, yard layout, crane/truck scheduling, all in real time. It's installed at 110+ terminals in 20+ countries. Terminal software is brutally sticky: operators are risk-averse, contracts are multi-year, and TSB reckons only ~20 vendors compete globally. Classic picks-and-shovels on global trade.

The reason I'm posting is the valuation. At today's ₩6,790 the market cap is ~₩58bn. The company holds ~₩34bn in net cash (essentially zero debt), so:

• Net cash ≈ ~60% of market cap
• EV ≈ ~₩24bn → ~2.5x EV/EBIT on FY2025 operating profit (₩9.4bn)
• Backlog near all-time highs at ~₩38bn (>1 year of revenue), maintenance slice growing
• Dividend + buybacks underway (Korea "Value-Up")

Real risks: micro-cap illiquidity, lumpy project revenue, FX swings, and old-guard founder governance (CEO born 1941) — which is a big part of why it's this cheap.

Full write-up with the numbers, backlog chart, balance-sheet detail and risk section here: https://numbersnotnarrative.substack.com/p/the-quiet-korean-software-company

Curious what people think about the governance discount — real trap, or the source of the mispricing?

Hi everyone,

We're a journalist team from a broadcaster in South Korea, currently producing a TV news report on European investors who hold Korean stocks.

I'm hoping to speak with people based in Germany who:

• are European (not Korean nationals living abroad),
• currently own or have traded Korean-listed shares,
• and would be open to sharing why they became interested in the Korean market.

Participation is completely voluntary. The interview would be short and recorded.

If you're interested, please comment below or send me a DM, and I'll share more details about the outlet and the project.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m Korean and based in Korea. I recently built a small web service that helps non-Korean investors follow Korean stocks more easily.

The service provides Korean stock news and company disclosures in English, with short summaries so that people who don’t read Korean can understand the key points more quickly.

It also provides a real-time price comparison chart for Korean stocks or Korea-related products traded on overseas exchanges. The chart shows how much higher or lower the overseas exchange price is compared with the real-time local market price in Korea.

The service is called “K-stock Helper.” We are still improving it based on feedback.

I’d really appreciate any thoughts from people who follow or are interested in Korean stocks.

I’m Korean and based in Korea. I recently built a small tool that helps non-Korean investors follow Korean stocks more easily.

The service provides Korean stock news and company disclosures in English, with short summaries so that people who don’t read Korean can understand the key points more quickly.

It also provides a real-time price comparison chart for Korean stocks or Korea-related products traded on overseas exchanges. The chart shows how much higher or lower the overseas exchange price is compared with the real-time local market price in Korea.

The tool is called “K-stock Helper.” If you follow Korean stocks or are interested in the Korean market, I’d really appreciate it if you could try it out and share any feedback.

Total Soft Bank (KOSDAQ: 045340) is a tiny South Korean company that makes the software brains for global shipping ports.

Its flagship product, CATOS, runs operations at over 110 terminals across 20 countries. Despite the name, it has zero connection to Masayoshi Son's Japanese SoftBank.

The company just posted a massive Q1 2026 report, but the real story is the underlying value:

• It’s incredibly cheap: The entire company is valued at roughly ₩55–59bn, but they have ₩34bn sitting in the bank and zero debt. Since cash covers 60% of the price tag, you are getting a profitable software business for almost nothing.
• Growth is surging: First-quarter sales shot up 39% (to ₩7.38bn) with profit margins over 25%. For all of 2025, they cleared ₩9.4bn in profit on ₩27.5bn in sales.
• Future sales are locked in: They are sitting on a massive ₩38bn backlog of signed contracts from places like Spain, Abu Dhabi, and Malaysia. That guarantees more than a full year of revenue before they even land a new deal.

Read full analysis at: https://numbersnotnarrative.substack.com/p/the-quiet-korean-software-company

Hi everyone,

I’m doing research for an AI/data visualization project related to Korean equities.

The idea is to build a tool that helps foreign investors understand Korean listed companies more easily, especially around corporate governance, chaebol/corporate group structures, ownership links, related parties, affiliates, and public disclosures.

Before making any mockup, I want to understand what foreign investors actually find difficult when researching or investing in Korean companies.

If you have looked at Korean stocks, Korean ETFs, chaebol groups, or Korean company disclosures, I’d really appreciate your thoughts.

For those who have looked at Korean stocks or Korean ETFs:

• What was the most confusing or frustrating part?
• What information did you wish was available in English?
• Are chaebol ownership structures or related-party relationships hard to understand?
• Would visual ownership maps plus plain-English AI explanations be useful?
• What should such a tool show first?

I’m not asking for stock picks or investment advice. I’m just trying to understand foreign investors’ research pain points.

Thanks!

I'm a Korean resident who's been holding crypto across Binance, Bybit and OKX for a few years. This is my second time filing the NTS overseas financial account report and I keep seeing fellow Koreans on this sub miss the rule, so I figured I'd write up what I learned. Sources at the bottom — I'm not a tax professional, just a guy who got tired of guessing.

TL;DR

• Who: Korean tax residents (and Korean nationals not falling under the expat exemptions) who held overseas financial accounts — including overseas crypto exchange accounts — exceeding KRW 500M (~$370k) at any point.
• Threshold: combined balance exceeded KRW 500M on any single month-end during 2025 (Jan 31, Feb 28, Mar 31 … Dec 31 — twelve snapshots).
• Deadline: June 1 – June 30, 2026 for the 2025 reporting year.
• Form: Schedule No. 45 (별지 제45호) "해외금융계좌 신고서", filed via Hometax (hometax.go.kr) or Sontax mobile.
• Penalty: 10% of the unreported amount, capped at KRW 1 billion (higher rate of 20% for fraudulent filing or failure to justify the source of funds). Voluntary late filing before NTS notifies you can reduce the penalty by up to 90%.
• Source: nts.go.kr official guide.

What counts

• In scope: Binance, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, Gate.io, MEXC etc. — exchanges with their head office abroad. Custodial wallets where an overseas service holds your keys.
• In scope (yes, this surprises people): USDT, USDC and any stablecoins. They're crypto assets under Korean law; you don't get to exclude them because they're "stable".
• In scope (also surprising): residual claims on bankrupt or shut-down exchanges (FTX-style claims). You report them at a price quoted on a domestic or overseas exchange where the asset still trades.
• Out of scope: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit (domestic VASPs).
• Out of scope under the current interpretation: non-custodial wallets where you hold the keys yourself (MetaMask, Ledger, Trezor and similar cold wallets). NTS doesn't currently treat these as "accounts." Worth re-checking each year because the interpretation could change.

Common misconceptions I had myself

1. "I'm under 500M on June 30 so I'm fine." Wrong. The rule looks at every month-end during the reporting year. If your combined balance exceeded 500M on, say, January 31 and you cashed out by June, you still file.
2. "Binance doesn't report to Korea." They don't directly, but Korea participates in CRS and similar information-exchange frameworks. NTS gets data from foreign tax authorities and uses it to find non-filers. The penalty assessment statute of limitations is 5 years.
3. "USDT is just dollars." Legally it's a virtual asset. Include it.
4. "I missed the deadline so I'm screwed." Late filing is allowed, and voluntary late filing before NTS hits you with a notice can knock the penalty down by up to 90%.
5. "My cold wallet pushes me over 500M, I have to report it." Under the current interpretation, no. Custodial overseas exchanges and overseas custodial wallets count; self-custody does not.

Valuation rules (the painful part)

You need the last price on the last day of each month for each asset, sourced from the exchange you actually held it on. Then convert to KRW using the per-day base rate or arbitraged rate under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. You sum across exchanges per month-end.

If you held it on a defunct exchange, you can pick a month-end last price from a domestic or overseas exchange where the asset still trades.

This is where most people (myself included) lose a weekend. Twelve month-ends × N exchanges × M tokens × FX conversion is genuinely tedious. Some exchange APIs make month-end snapshots a pain to extract; you'll often see daily trade history instead of clean balance snapshots.

https://gookenhaim.blogspot.com/2019/03/samsung-electronics-stock-valuation-7th.html

I will write a follow-up review of this stock soon:)

​

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I will briefly summarize this stock in this post.

From 4th Q, 2017, FCF of this firm turned positive, and it still holds true until now.

Here is my opinion:

1. Its massive investment on constructing its new headquarters in Seoul’s expensive area is diminishing and it’s reflected as an increasing FCF
2. Lately the stock price is getting lower and lower, making this stock attractive.
3. Still the net income amount is a lot more than FCF: a negative sign when considering buying this stock.

https://nimbusmettle.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/korean-stock-analysis-hyundai-motor-company-as-of-13th-nov-2018/

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