KONA I CO., LTD. 052400

KONA I (KOSDAQ: 052400) — deep-value analysis

Reference price … (08.24.2026, close) · Market cap … · 14,372,000 shares outstanding (14,563,291 issued) · Reporting and trading in KRW (same currency — no conversion exposure on the multiples)

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Executive summary

KONA I is two businesses glued into a single … stock. The first is a Korean maker of IC chips and smart cards that, since 2018, has entered the premium metal-card niche and reached 12.1% global unit share (second after CompoSecure, 80.9%), with a dominant position — 35% global share — on the "Metal Veneer" product, the cheap and scalable route to a metal card. The second is the private operator of the local digital currency (지역화폐) for around 60 South Korean local governments: of the 113.94 trillion KRW paid with local currency nationally between 2020 and mid-2025, 49.33 trillion (43%) went through KONA I's platforms. The first business has margin and a technological entry barrier; the second has brutal operating leverage and dependence on a political budget.

2025 was the moment both worked simultaneously. Revenue rose to … (… versus 236.3 bn in 2024), operating profit to 88.9 bn (…), and operating margin from 14.1% to 28.8% — an unusual level for a company with an industrial base. The engine: local-currency payment volume rose from ~9 trillion KRW to ~12 trillion, and the segment, which at 9 trillion barely broke even, delivered 881% operating-profit growth; in parallel, metal card sales grew 47% in units and 77% in operating profit (source: Samsung Securities, 2025 Review, 03.31.2026). The current quarter confirms it: H1 2026 brought revenue of 161.0 bn (…), operating profit 46.2 bn (…), and net profit 45.6 bn (…). Over the last four reported quarters (Q3 2025 – Q2 2026): revenue 344.7 bn, operating profit 105.2 bn (…% margin), net profit 95.6 bn, EPS … — so TTM P/E 5.95x.

This is where the part that doesn't show up on screens comes in. Reported operating cash flow is NOT the shareholder's cash flow. In 2025, CFO was …, but 60.9 bn of it is the working-capital swing — essentially the growth of settlement balances owed to merchants and local governments, third-party money passing through KONA I's balance sheet. That this isn't a theoretical subtlety is proven by 2022, when the same mechanics ran in reverse and CFO was minus …, and cash fell from 885 bn to 155 bn in a single year. The correct bridge for 2025 looks like this: CFO 152.4 − working-capital swing 60.9 − capex 24.8 − lease principal 1.7 = normalized FCFE …, versus "simple FCF" (CFO − capex) of 127.5 bn. Difference: …. The real FCFE yield is 11.4%, not 22.4%. By the same logic, the "net cash position" of … that yfinance shows and that Samsung Securities carries at 202 bn is overstated: net current assets at 12/31/2025 are …, and the independent route (cash + short-term investments 266.2 − debt 43.6 − net settlement balance 176.0 − 61.2 = 114.8) gives 107.8 bn. I use … adjusted net cash in the valuation, with a prudence margin against the two converging calculations.

With normalized owner earnings of … (the average between 2025's audited FCFE of 64.9 bn and the earning power implied by the company's own 2026 guidance of 73.9 bn), 7% growth in years 1-5, an 11% discount rate, and … terminal growth, the conservative DCF gives an intrinsic value of …/share (…). The five-model triangulation, however, gives a much wider range — from … (the political-shock scenario) to … (the scenario where the government's 24 trillion KRW issuance target materializes), with a median of …. The Monte Carlo simulation over 20,000 scenarios puts the median value at … and the probability of undervaluation at …% — but this is exactly the point that must be read with suspicion, because this company's dominant risk isn't a continuous-parameter one, it's binary.

Verdict: SPECULATIVE BUY, small position (1… of portfolio), not a conviction position. The business is cheap at 5.95x profit and 4.5x operating profit on an adjusted enterprise value, generates real cash, has a founder-shareholder with 34.3% and a capital-return policy that visibly tightened in 2026 (the company's first-ever quarterly dividend, …/share tax-free, plus two buyback tranches of ~… each with explicit cancellation). What stops the verdict from being a simple "buy" are three documented things: (1) 43% of a government program is a political concentration, and the October 2025 parliamentary committee explicitly called for transferring operations to Korea Minting (조폐공사); (2) the April 2024 acquisition, for …, of family company KONA M — which got 96% of revenue from KONA I — followed by a special tax inspection by Bureau 4 of the Seoul Tax Administration on suspicion of private-benefit extraction; (3) the … construction contract for "The Hanok Heritage," a hotel 100% personally owned by chairman Cho Jung-il, which management has promoted to the rank of the listed company's third strategic pillar. The governance discount isn't a market opinion — it's the fair price of these facts.

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