April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] One in four family members of Korea’s major conglomerate owners have put up shares as collateral to take out loans from financial institutions, a market tracker said on Oct. 4.

CEO Score said that 178 owner family members of 51 conglomerates, known here as chaebol, have offered shares in their subsidiaries as collateral as of end-September.

The value of the shares used as collateral totals 11.74 trillion won (US$10.40 billion), accounting for 13.4 percent of the combined shareholdings of owner family members of the 51 conglomerates, the latest findings, which track corporate performance in the country, showed.

The ratio of share collateral by owners’ children stood at 12.11 percent, compared with the 9.44 percent of their parents, a sign that the younger family members have put up their shares as collateral to raise funds to pay inheritance tax in the process of business succession, CEO Score said.

Owner family members of Doosan Group provided the largest amount of shares as collateral, with 1.18 trillion won or 93.6 percent of the value of their combined shareholdings.

Samsung C&T President Lee Seo-hyun holds more than 3 million shares or 3 percent in Samsung SDS, an IT arm of South Korea‘s top business group, Samsung, and she has put up 220,000 shares as collateral. She is the only owner family member of Samsung Group who offered shares as collateral, according to CEO Score.

At 0.16 percent, Korea’s largest family-controlled conglomerate had the lowest share collateral of its owner family.

Owner family members of Hyundai Motor, Korea’s largest carmaker by sales, didn’t offer a single share of their subsidiaries as collateral.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)