Weighted in Favor of Samsung Stocks

The National Pension Service (NPS) earned over 8 trillion won (US$7.39 billion) in appraisal profits from Samsung Electronics alone last year.
The National Pension Service (NPS) earned over 8 trillion won (US$7.39 billion) in appraisal profits from Samsung Electronics alone last year.

The aggregate market value of Samsung Group shares held by the National Pension Service (NPS) exceeded 40 trillion won (US$36.97 billion) as of the end of last year, according to data from securities companies.

The NPS was found to have earned over 8 trillion won (US$7.39 billion) in appraisal profits from Samsung Electronics Co. alone, which more than offsets the 200 billion won (US$184.84 million) in appraisal losses that the NPS is thought to have suffered on its investment in Samsung BioLogics Co.

According to financial and investment banking industry sources on May 20, the value of NPS’s shareholding in Samsung units jumped from 29.04 trillion won (US$26.84 billion) at the end of 2016 to 40.05 trillion won at the end of 2017.

The NPS made investments in 13 listed Samsung affiliates, such as Samsung C&T Corp., Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Samsung SDI Co., Samsung SDS Co., Samsung Life Insurance Co., Samsung Securities Co., Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Cheil Industries Inc., Hotel Shilla Co., Samsung Engineering Co., Samsung Heavy Industries Co. and S-1 Corp. as well as Samsung Electronics, in 2017. Samsung SDS and Samsung Heavy Industries were added to the list of Samsung units where the NPS had a stake last year.

The NPS is believed to own more shares in Samsung units than those disclosed as it discloses its shareholdings under the so-called “5 percent rule,” which requires an investor to disclose its shareholdings in a company only when it owns more than 5 percent of its total shares.

Behemoth Samsung Electronics shares take up the largest amount of Samsung affiliates’ shares owned by the NPS. The estimated value of the Samsung Electronics shares held by the NPS stood at 31.52 trillion won (US$29.13 billion) at the end of last year, accounting for the most part of the NPS’ total investments.

In addition, there were four more Samsung affiliates whose stock prices were estimated at over 1 trillion won (US$924.21 million), including Samsung Life Insurance at 1.52 trillion won (US$1.41 billion), Samsung C&T at 1.36 trillion won (US$1.26 billion), Samsung SDI at 1.33 trillion won (US$1.23 billion) and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance at 1.14 trillion won (US$1.06 billion). They were followed by Samsung Electro-Mechanics at 820.8 billion won (US$758.6 million), Samsung SDS at 779 billion won (US$719.96 million), Hotel Shilla at 431.9 billion won (US$399.17 million), Samsung Securities at 307.4 billion won (US$284.1 million), S-1 at 277.5 billion won (US$256.47 million), Cheil Industries at 215.9 billion won (US$199.54 million), Samsung Engineering at 182.8 billion won (US$168.95 million) and Samsung Heavy Industries at 143.3 billion won (US$132.44 million).

Last year, the NPS mostly increased the number of stockholding in Samsung affiliates. Samsung Electronics was the only firm that saw the decrease of NPS’ stockholding, while only Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance showed no change.

The NPS held 12,976,838 shares of Samsung Electronics at the end of 2016 but decreased to 12,369,186 shares at the end of last year. The price of Samsung Electronics stocks sharply rose on grounds of surprisingly good performance as the semiconductor boom continued. So, the NPS sold 607,652 shares of them to realize profits.

Although the number of Samsung Electronics shares owned by the NPS dropped over 600,000 shares, the value of its stocks grew a whopping 8.13 trillion won (US$7.52 billion) to 31.52 trillion won (US$29.13 billion) in 2017 from 23.38 trillion won (US$21.61 billion) in the previous year.

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