![\"Monami](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/news-p.v1.20260711.39c0c60e018a41589dfd8b6cc404d7a4_P1.png\"\/ "\\"Monami")
Monami headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Photo: Monami<\/p>\nMonami headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Photo: Monami<\/p>\n
Monami, the maker of Korea’s beloved ballpoint pens, was pushed to the brink of delisting before individual investors rallied to buy its shares, prompting the CEO to express gratitude in a handwritten letter.<\/p>\n
A handwritten letter under the name of President Song Jae-hwa was posted on Monami’s website on the 11th. In the letter, Song wrote, “Even amid the difficult situation where we could have been delisted, the hearts of all of you who believed in, supported, and stood with Monami became a great source of strength that we could not exchange for anything.”<\/p>\n
He continued, “Watching the wave of support for Monami that has recently spread online, I feel deeply moved along with a heavy sense of responsibility.” He promised, “Using this position that you have protected as a foundation, we will repay you with better products and sincere quality.” He added, “Monami, which has been part of Korea’s record-keeping, will continue to stand firmly by your side.”<\/p>\n
Although Monami has guarded pencil cases for more than 60 years with affordable, high-quality ballpoint pens, its recent report card has been dismal. After its operating profit turned to a loss of 2.3 billion won in 2023, losses widened for three consecutive years to 3.8 billion won in 2024 and 5.9 billion won last year. This year, it posted an operating loss of 2.7 billion won in the first quarter alone.<\/p>\n
As poor performance shrank its market capitalization, the possibility of delisting became a reality. The delisting threshold based on KOSPI market capitalization was raised from the previous 20 billion won to 30 billion won this month, and it will be further strengthened to 50 billion won in 2027. Monami’s market capitalization stood at 24.8 billion won on the 7th and 25.9 billion won on the 8th, below the new baseline.<\/p>\n
What changed the mood was social media. As public opinion that “the Korean company Monami must be protected” spread, online stock communities were flooded with purchase confirmations along with posts such as “The people’s writing instruments must be protected by the people” and “We cannot let a good company that even pays dividends go under.”<\/p>\n
Buoyed by the buying, market capitalization crossed the baseline again to 32.3 billion won on the 9th, and according to the Korea Exchange, the stock closed at 2,145 won on the 10th, up 25.66%, recovering market capitalization to the 40 billion won level.<\/p>\n
This kind of “patriotic buying” trend is not the first for Monami. Seafood processing company Hansung Enterprise saw its fact of sponsoring the “Concert for Heroes” for Korean War veterans for 25 years rekindled online, sparking both a purchase confirmation campaign for its flagship product “Crami” and a wave of stock buying, with its shares hitting the daily upper limit for two consecutive days and surpassing 50 billion won in market capitalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monami headquarters in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Photo: Monami Monami, the maker of Korea’s beloved ballpoint pens, was pushed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[44392,44390,43505,9534,341,730,44389,44391,112],"class_list":["post-82827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seoul","tag-ballpoint-pen","tag-delisting-threat","tag-hansung-enterprise","tag-individual-investors","tag-korea-stock-market","tag-kospi-market-capitalization","tag-monami","tag-patriotic-buying","tag-seoul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}