AmorePacific Corp., South Korea’s largest cosmetics company, remained a favorite among foreign stock players on the main bourse and biopharmaceutical firm Hugel Inc. on the secondary tech-heavy Kosdaq market.

According to the Korea Exchange (KRX) on Tuesday, foreign investors net purchased 951.6 billion won ($867 million) worth of AmorePacific shares this year as the cosmetics company continue with staggering growth in the Asian market.

“While other beauty giants such as L’Oreal, Estee Lauder and Shiseido recorded negative growth in 2015, AmorePacific grew by 51.5 percent in the Asian market,” said Ham Eun-hui from Mirae Asset Daewoo Co.

AmorePacific stocks fell 0.26 percent to 388,000 won as of 13:43 p.m. in Seoul trading on Wednesday.

The Kosdaq-listed Hugel drew 202.2 billion won worth of net foreign buying this year, according to KRX. The company is expanding its business into the global market including China with its main products liquid botulinum toxin and hyaluronic acid fillers. In May it announced that it had received approval for phase 3 clinical trial for its Botulax in China, a product that will be released in the Chinese market starting 2019. Driven by the strong foreign appetite, Hugel shares rose 91.39 percent from the end of last year to close Tuesday at 344,700 won.

The KRX found that foreigners owned 464.1 trillion won in Korean stocks, or 30.56 percent of the total market capitalization as of August 10 and up 1.42 percent from the end of last year. The gain is attributed to foreigners’ aggressive buying of large-cap stocks. They owned 38.14 percent of large-caps listed on the Kospi market, up 1.42 percent compared to 29.14 percent at the end of 2015. Their holdings of mid-caps rose 0.47 percent and small-caps 0.41 percent.

Foreign holdings of blue-chip shares listed on the Kosdaq accounted for 15.08 percent, up 0.59 percent from the end of last year while those of mid-sized companies rose 0.37 percent and promising companies 0.01 percent. Their holding in venture companies fell 1.36 percent from the end of last year to 5.35 percent.

By Park Yun-gu

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