Elice Shares Plunge 28% on Trading Debut as Investor Doubts Over AI Trade Deepen

3-line summary

• Korean AI-infrastructure company Elice made its trading debut after pricing its IPO at the top of the range (₩90,500), raising about ₩201.1 billion (~$150 million) following institutional demand of 388.84x and retail demand of 408.26x, with subscription deposits exceeding ₩10 trillion; shares opened at ₩75,700 (-16.4%), fell as low as ₩61,000 (-32.6%) intraday, and closed around ₩65,300, down about 27.8%.
• Investors cited high financing costs, heavy capital expenditure, and uncertain monetization timing for AI infrastructure buildouts as reasons for the selloff, despite Elice reporting H1 2026 revenue of ₩34.4 billion and operating profit of ₩10.3 billion, already surpassing full-year 2025 revenue of ₩39.5 billion and operating profit of ₩5.2 billion.
• The debut adds to a string of recent setbacks for AI-infrastructure financing: Australia's Firmus postponed a $5 billion IPO last week, and CoreWeave's stock and bonds have come under pressure, as markets grow more skeptical of the economics behind the AI buildout even as underlying earnings growth continues.

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