Yahoo Finance Lee Family Said to Be Seller of $2 Billion in Samsung Shares
(Bloomberg) -- The Lee family behind the Samsung conglomerate were the sellers of about $2 billion of shares in four Seoul-listed companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Shares of all four fell in early trading in Seoul on Thursday.
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Nearly 30 million shares of Samsung Electronics Co. — the biggest of the four blocks — were sold at a discount of 1.2% to Wednesday’s closing price of 73,600 won to raise 2.17 trillion won, according to terms of the deal. That makes it the largest Korean block sale since 2002, based on the amount in local currency, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The other smaller offerings were in Samsung SDS Co., Samsung C&T Corp. and Samsung Life Insurance Co. KEB Hana Bank was the seller in all of them, the terms show.
A member or members of the founding family, whose patriarch Lee Kun-hee died in 2020, are selling to pay the inheritance tax through trusts held by KEB Hana Bank, the people said, asking not be named as the information is private.
Shares of Samsung Electronics dropped as much as 1.2%. Samsung SDS tumbled as much as 4.3%, the most since early November, after 1.5 million shares were offered at a discount of 4.9% to the previous day’s closing price. Samsung C&T fell 2.3% while Samsung Life slumped 3.7%.
In March 2022, the Lee family was also said to be behind the sale of $1.1 billion in Samsung Electronics shares. The tax bill was more than 12 trillion won at the time.
“The deal appears to be somewhat well flagged, however, the timing could have been much better,” Aequitas Research analyst Sumeet Singh wrote in a note on Smartkarma Holdings Pte.
Samsung Electronics shares are down 6.6% so far this year amid concerns over continued weakness in memory chips. South Korea’s largest company earlier this week posted its sixth straight quarter of declining operating profit.
A representative for Samsung declined to comment on the transactions.
Goldman Sachs Group, Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and UBS Group AG are bookrunners for the Samsung Electronics deal. Goldman Sachs and Citi are the bookrunners for Samsung SDS, Samsung C&T and Samsung Life Insurance transactions.
Read more: Samsung Heirs to Sell $1.57b of Shares for Inheritance Tax Bill
--With assistance from Yoolim Lee, Margo Towie and Julia Fioretti.
(Updates stock prices and adds size and scope to second paragraph)
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