Four Korean ADRs, three different ratios. If you own the New York line, you may not own what you think.
Two people asked me this week how an American actually buys a Korean listed company. The honest answer has two halves. The second half is the one that costs money.
The first half is easy. Interactive Brokers added direct Korea Exchange access in 2026. You enable Korean stock permissions and trade the local line in won. Most other US brokers still don't carry Korean listings.
The second half is the New York listings. This is where people get hurt without noticing.
A handful of large Korean companies have ADRs you can buy in any account. The depositary ratio is different for almost every one of them. Nothing in the ticker tells you which you have. From the filings and the NYSE listings:
- KB Financial: 1 ADR = 1 common share
- Shinhan Financial: 1 ADR = 1 common share
- KT: 1 ADR = one-half of a share
- LG Display: 1 ADR = one-half of a share
- POSCO Holdings: 1 ADR = one-quarter of a share
- SK Telecom: 1 ADR = five-ninths of a share
Five-ninths is not a typo. SK Telecom's ADS was one-ninth of a share until October 2021. The company then split off SK Square. Shareholders received 0.6073625 of a modified share for each old share. The depositary adjusted the ratio. The residue stayed.
Three things follow from the ratios.
Your dividend per ADR is the Korean dividend times the ratio. This is before Korean withholding and before the depositary fee. KT declared ₩600 a share for the quarter in July. That is ₩300 per ADR.
Your earnings per ADR are the Korean EPS times the ratio. KT's first-half basic EPS was ₩3,290. That is ₩1,645 per ADR. If you compare the ADR price to the Korean EPS, you will think the stock is half as expensive as it is.
Long-term ADR charts can be worthless. SK Telecom's ratio changed in 2021. The pre-2021 and post-2021 prices are not the same instrument.
One more thing surprised me. Every large Korean ADR pays something except one. KB and Shinhan yield around 2.8% gross. POSCO yields about 2.4%. SK Telecom yields 3.3%, and KT yields 4.5%. LG Display has paid nothing for three fiscal years. As of the first-half accounts it is not legally able to pay. Its distributable profit is gone.
None of this is hidden. It is just spread across a New York listing page and a Korean filing that exists only in Korean.
I'd like to know this from people who hold foreign listings. Do you check the depositary ratio and the fee schedule before you buy? Or do you find out at the first dividend?
Figures are from the companies' filings and the NYSE listing pages. No position in any of the names above.
(Written with AI help. I pulled the figures from the filings myself and checked them; the drafting used an AI model.)