Direct financing by South Korean companies grew 7.5 percent in 2015 from a year earlier on the back of large-size initial public offerings (IPOs), the financial watchdog said Tuesday.

Local companies raised a combined 131.11 trillion won ($109.53 billion) through stock and bond sales throughout last year, compared to 121.93 trillion won logged the previous year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

Equity issuance surged 38.9 percent on-year to 8.01 trillion won in 2015, the data showed.

Of them, IPOs reached 3.16 trillion won, an 80 percent increase from the previous year's 1.57 trillion won, and secondary offerings went up 21 percent to 4.86 trillion won, according to the FSS.

Total debt issuance also grew 6 percent on-year to 123.1 trillion won thanks to the increase in bonds issued by financial firms and banks, though the amount of corporate debt issues edged down 3.3 percent to 40.91 trillion, the data showed. (Yonhap)