Elice, a South Korean AI data centre company, lost 32% of its share value on its first day of trading in Seoul. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, that is the worst debut on record for a Korean IPO of $100m or more.
The company raised 201.1bn won ($151m) in the offering. That clears the $100m bar behind the record, so the comparison is with Korea's larger listings, not with small-cap issues where wild first-day swings are routine.
Elice's pitch is AI infrastructure: housing and renting out the computing power that AI models depend on. That is a capital-hungry business, and an IPO is one way to pay for it. A 32% drop on day one suggests public investors are less willing to pay up for that story than the sector's enthusiasm might imply, at least at this price.
One debut is a single data point, and a first-day move reflects the pricing of the offering as much as the quality of the business. The more useful signal comes later: whether Elice's shares settle or keep sliding, and how the next Korean AI-related listing is received by the same investors.