KOSDAQ (KOSDAQ) · Consumer Non-Durables
NeoPharm Co., Ltd. 092730
Buy candidateScore band: 70–80
The thesis, in one sentence
A Korean dermocosmetics maker with a two-decade brand moat and strong operating returns holds so much net cash that the controlling family's reluctance to distribute it is the whole story, and the main risk is that the cash pile never gets unlocked.
Written for this site in plain English, without figures. The arithmetic is in the full report.
Key risks
- Net cash may never be distributed to minority shareholders
- The brand's niche positioning limits how large the business can scale
- A dividend policy change is the catalyst the thesis is waiting on
What would change the verdict
- Operating margin falls for two consecutive quarters
- Revenue growth slows below the pace the case assumes
- Days inventory outstanding rise for two consecutive quarters
- Free cash flow yield falls below a level that still looks cheap
Read it yourself
Step five of the method is the reader's: open the latest annual or quarterly report and read it before acting on anything here. A score is a summary, and a summary is not understanding.
This exchange has no stable per-company address, so the link opens the disclosure portal — search there for the ticker.
The deep report was written against the filings available on 2026-09-16; anything published since is not in it.
Price, one year
DCF valuation range
range of the DCF modelsbase casetoday's price
Valuation range, shape only. Figures in the full version.
Monte Carlo outcome shape
scenarios below today's pricescenarios above today's pricetoday's price
Distribution of simulated outcomes around today's price. Bar heights only; the scale and the percentiles are in the full version.
Where the money goes
Last four reported quarters, 2025-09 → 2026-06, in KRW. Filings data as gathered on 2026-09-16. Figures rounded to three significant digits.
Chapter one: Executive summary
NeoPharm Co., Ltd. (네오팜) — KOSDAQ 092730 — deep-value analysis, REFRESH
September 16, 2026 · reference price … · 15,641,256 shares outstanding (16,027,989 issued − 386,733 treasury) · market cap 340,197 mil KRW
Regime: REFRESH. The reference analysis is from 08.23.2026 (verdict: BUY, small position). The mechanical deep_delta.py triage of 09.15.2026 requested a refresh for 3 unverifiable falsifiers — not a broken falsifier. Delta pack: rapoarte/deep/delta-092730-20260915.md.
What I inherit, explicitly. Between 08.23.2026 and today there is no new filing. The DART query (python dart.py 092730 --ani 2) returns as the most recent periodic filing the 반기보고서 (2026.06), received 08.14.2026 — the exact same one the reference analysis relies on. The next primary document is the Q3 2026 quarterly report, expected around 11.14.2026. Consequently I inherit untouched: the Business and moat, Management and capital allocation, Balance-sheet analysis — Quality of Earnings, CEO profile chapters, and the factual structure of the Red flags (report of 08.23.2026, lines 35–87, 161–246, 247–270, 271–290). I summarize them here with their figures, but don't re-derive them: nothing has been published that would move them.
What I re-derive, and why. Four things:
- The falsifier set — the real cause of the refresh. Three of the six falsifiers in the old thesis are structurally unverifiable for this issuer, not temporarily unavailable. I replace them with observables that actually populate. Detailed in Verdict versus the tracker's GBL score.
- Access to net cash (λ) — step 5b of the method, which the August run only handled in prose and did not apply in the simulation (
acces=1in both the 08.23 and 09.15 JSON). At a ticker with 42.6% of price in net cash, that's not a detail: it's nearly half the intrinsic value awarded with zero variance, across all 20,000 scenarios. I now calibrate it from filings and apply it. - The entire valuation, at today's price and with λ applied — the five triangulated models and Monte Carlo.
- The FCF bridge, cross-checked: yfinance has since delivered the 2026-06 quarter, which it didn't have in August. The manual reconstruction from back then is confirmed to the million (see below) — a validation, not a correction.
The price move isn't the thesis. The delta pack records … from … to …. The … figure is the price recorded in the tracker when the thesis was written, not the report's reference price (…, close of 08.21.2026). Versus the reference report, the stock fell 3.5% in 26 days, on zero new information. That's context, not a reason to re-do the thesis, and I build nothing on it.
Executive summary
NeoPharm makes dermocosmetics for sensitive and atopic skin, under five brands — Atopalm, Real Barrier, Zeroid (the medical line, through hospitals and clinics), Derma-B and Ts — on two proprietary patented technologies: synthetic ceramides Ceramide-9S and the multi-lamellar emulsion MLE®. 196 employees, headquarters and plant in Daejeon, KOSDAQ-listed since 2007, 42.34%-controlled by the It's Hanbul group.
Operating figures, unchanged from August, since nothing new has been published. Q2 2026 remains the best quarter in the company's history: revenue 43,572 mil (… YoY), operating profit 9,789 mil (…), net profit 8,405 mil (…). For the half-year: 79,796 / 18,493 / 17,029 mil (… / … / …). TTM (Q3 2025 – Q2 2026): revenue 148,389 mil, operating profit 32,476 mil (margin 21.9%), net profit 30,648 mil, EPS ….
Today's valuation, at …: P/E 11.1x, P/B 1.69x, EV/EBIT 6.01x after deducting net cash of … mil, FCFE yield 7.88%, simple FCF yield 8.16%. Net cash is … per share, i.e. 42.6% of price and 72% of equity.
What changed in the thesis, in one sentence: the business is the same, the price is 3.5% lower, but the valuation collapses when net cash is treated for what it is — a claim with uncertain access on a family that has never distributed it — instead of cash at face value. The August run had correctly written the problem in prose ("if that money never reaches the shareholder, its present value isn't … mil, it's 29,640") and then reported the simulation marker that gave it full face value anyway. This refresh closes the inconsistency.
Calibrating access (λ = 0.35), from the filing, not from impression. The FY2025 annual report (chapter VI, dividend table) gives three years of total shareholder return: dividends 5,865 mil (FY2023), 9,384 (FY2024), 11,730 (FY2025) = 26,979 mil, buybacks zero, on cumulative consolidated net profit of 74,101 mil → 36.4% of cumulative profit reached the shareholder. The independent floor: the pile yields 2.25% net, and capitalized at …% is worth 31,051 out of …, i.e. an implied λ of 0.214. I use λ = 0.35, between the two, at the Samsung benchmark level (0.35), above Sunny Optical (0.22) and Geely (0.20) — because NeoPharm has a distribution policy that's written, quantified (40… of standalone profit), honored and increased by 25%, "high-dividend enterprise" tax status, and a parent company structurally dependent on this dividend; and below i-Scream Media (0.40), because it has bought back not a single share in five years and hasn't canceled the 386,733 treasury shares.
Estimated value. Five models, all with λ stated: DCF bear … (…), 5-year historical multiples … (…), EPV Greenwald … (…), base conservative DCF … (…), DCF bull … (…). Median of the five: …. Monte Carlo across 20,000 scenarios with λ = 0.35: median intrinsic value …, median MOS ** …**, but with P10 at … and undervaluation probability …% (versus 98.3% without λ).
Verdict: HOLD / accumulate only below …. I'm downgrading from BUY (08.23.2026) — not because the business deteriorated (nothing published shows that), but because the valuation model back then contained a methodological error I identified and didn't correct: 42.6% of price was treated as cash at face value, across all scenarios. Corrected, the median of the five models moves from … to …, and the pessimistic end of the Monte Carlo distribution moves from … to …. The business remains excellent: 51… return on operating capital employed, a twenty-year niche-leading brand, zero financial debt for five years, uninterrupted dividend since 2007. The price, however, no longer offers a margin of safety once the unproven hypothesis about the treasury is removed from the equation.
Figures were removed from this excerpt. The full report opens free for five tickers a week — see what's open now.
Full report contents
- Executive summary
- 🔒 The business and the moat (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 Management and capital allocation (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 What changed over the last 4 quarters (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 Balance-sheet analysis — Quality of Earnings (Thornton O'Glove method) (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 CEO profile — Outsider traits (William Thorndike method) (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 Accounting red flags (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 Triangulated valuation (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 Pre-mortem (Available in the full report)
- 🔒 Verdict versus the tracker's GBL score (Available in the full report)
Evaluation history
| Date | Verdict |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-22 | Buy candidate |
| 2026-08-23 | Buy candidate |
| 2026-09-06 | Buy candidate |
| 2026-09-16 | Buy candidate |
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