Three members of the family owning Samsung Electronics will be selling shares worth 1.73 trillion won ($1.22 billion) in the South Korean firm, the company said in a late Friday regulatory filing with the Korea Exchange.
Experts say the sale of 17.7 million shares by the mother and two sisters of Jay Y. Lee, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, is to secure funds to pay their inheritance tax estimated at about 12 trillion won, following the death of the Samsung patriarch, Lee Kun-hee, in 2020.
The sale will be handled by Shinhan Bank under a trust contract and completed by next April, as per the filing.
Lee’s sisters, Lee Boo-jin and Lee Seo-hyun, and his mother Hong Ra-hee, are also said to be selling off 0.3 per cent of their stake for loan repayment.
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So far this year, Samsung stock is up more than 84 per cent, having gained 0.2 per cent on Friday to 97,900 won. The company’s shares jumped more than 48 per cent after a chip-supply deal announcement with Tesla in July.
Samsung has since secured supply deals with other major customers such as OpenAI, with talk of the firm supplying its latest high-bandwidth memory products to Nvidia.
“Samsung’s 10 trillion-won share buyback plan last year was aimed at protecting the stock value, which would help the Samsung family secure funds for inheritance tax,” said Park Ju-gun, head of corporate analysis firm, Leaders Index.
Park acknowledges that the family’s decision to sell shares “at a time like this” could dampen sentiment among retail investors.
“After all, Samsung Electronics is practically a ‘national stock’, owned by about 5 million retail shareholders who have been eagerly watching the shares approach the 100,000-won mark after the recent rally,” he added.
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