The Korea Value-up Index, the key component of the government’s push to boost corporate value and address the “Korea Discount,” is to enlist 100 companies, including Hyundai Motor and Mirae Asset Securities, according to the bourse operator Korea Exchange.

On Tuesday, the Korea Exchange released the roadmap for the Value-up Index, a stock index comprising Korean companies complying with the corporate value-up program. The initiative, released earlier this year, includes a set of measures to promote the corporate growth of listed companies.

“The index consists of representative companies that fulfill diverse qualitative standards, such as profitability, shareholder return, market evaluation and capital efficiency, along with quantitative factors such as market cap and trading volume,” the bourse operator said.

The Value-up Index will have 100 constituents with a base value of 1,000, encompassing companies listed on both the benchmark Kospi and the secondary bourse Kosdaq.

The components will go through a five-stage screening process. The top 400 companies by market cap, companies that have paid dividends or retired treasury stocks in two consecutive years, and companies with a price-to-book value ranking in the top 50 percent on the market or in their respective industries will be considered for inclusion. Companies that have recorded a loss in earnings in two consecutive years or two years combined will be excluded.

Of the companies that fulfill the criteria, the exchange operator will select the top 100 companies in terms of return on equity.

Companies that released their plan to boost their corporate value by Monday were considered for a special inclusion on the index, as long as they met the minimum requirements such as profitability, market cap, and liquidity. The inclusion will last two years.

Under such guidelines, the included companies are the country's top automaker Hyundai Motor, banking giants Shinhan Financial Group, Woori Financial Group and Mirae Asset Securities. Big-name finance companies Meritz Financial Group, Kiwoom Securities and contract chip manufacturers DB HiTek are listed as well.

The Value-up Index will be capitalization-weighted, meaning individual components’ influence will be based on market capitalization. There will be a 15 percent limit on the maximum weight of a single component, and it will be rebalanced every June.

The index will be available for investors in and out of Korea from next Monday. Index futures will be listed on Nov. 4. Exchange-traded funds that track the index will be listed in early November.

“The Value-up Index will be differentiated from other leading market indices such as Kospi 200. Even companies with top market caps could be excluded from the index based on other qualitative standards,” the Korea Exchange explained.

“Developing the Value-up Index, we have learned that there is a demand for diversified products based on the index. We will continue to develop more follow-up indices with the Value-up Index as their core.”