직접금융의 활성화를 위한 중소기업전문주식시장(KONEX)의 도입 논의

This paper aims to review the characteristics of finance in Small-and-Medium enterprises (hereinafter, SMEs), SMEs’ needs for direct financing and KONEX (KOrea New EXchange) which is now being considered to be established under Korean Exchange. SMEs, especially innoventures are the growth engines of our economy. However, despite of Korean SMEs’ necessity for financing, direct financing such as financing through issuing stocks or bonds consists only of around 1% of external funds. Not only Korean SMEs themselves but also venture capital funds also need an equity market to circulate their funds. The main reason why the SMEs suffer from lack of fund is information asymmetry, due to which their investors feel difficulty in managing SMEs’ credit risk. In order to facilitate direct financing of venture start-ups and SMEs through the capital market. the Korean Financial Services Commission (hereinafter, the FSC) is seeking to set up a SME funding market tentatively named KONEX which benchmarks the British AIM and Japanese Tokyo Pro Market, thereby financing SMEs and their venture capitals, thereby creating a virtuous cycle. For successful operation of KONEX, related systems should be modified and the Korean nominated adviser will be the key point among others. In KONEX, nominated advisers can be expected to do similar roles of major creditor banks in relationship banking, thereby helping to list the KONEX and to advise disclosure as well as distributing information appropriately in market full of information asymmetry. For the success of nominated adviser system, above all things, the FSC should give appropriate incentives to nominated advisers and it should help nominated advisers to play their role actively in the market. To induce them to participate in taking over roles of nominated advisers, safeguards for acts of nominated advisers should be established about their powers and liabilities in advance to lessen the legal uncertainty, which includes duty of keeping independence from the listed companies and not staying in interest conflict with them.