Deutsche Bank upgrade Korean retail giant
It’s time for investors to step up and buy shares of Coupang , according to Deutsche Bank. The bank upgraded the South Korean retail giant to buy from hold. While it did trim its price target on U.S.-listed shares to $25 from $29, the new forecast signals upside of 17.6%. Coupang has struggled of late, losing 32.5% over the past three months after a massive data breach raised regulatory scrutiny. The company agreed to pay $1.1 billion to customers affected by the data breach. Coupang has also been facing pressure from regulators since 2024, when it was fined more than $100 million for allegedly violating the country’s monopoly rules. CPNG 3M mountain CPNG 3-mo chart “We expect these regulatory pressures to impact its market practices, operational costs, and so its growth trajectory … but we see such headwinds slowing, rather than preventing, its rise,” analyst Peter Milliken wrote to clients. “We don’t expect consumers to care much, unless it is repeated. This has been our experience with telecom network failures – users are forgiving unless the outages are long and regular,” he added. The number of daily active users in Coupang hit an all-time high last month, topping 17 million, according to a Yonhap report . Milliken added that “it would be very unusual to favour foreign companies over domestic ones – so ultimately, we expect respect to be restored between the two sides.” He expects the stock to be more volatile, however. Milliken lifted his beta multiple to 1.1 from 1. Shares were up 3.7% in the premarket after the upgrade.
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