LG Group Suffers Largest Drop in Market Cap
As South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI has dropped to the 2,100 level this year, the country’s top five business groups saw 100 trillion won (US$88.26 billion) of their market capitalization evaporate.
According to Seoul-based market data provider FnGuide on Oct. 14, the combined market capitalization of listed subsidiaries under the five business groups, including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG and Lotte, came to 728.64 trillion won (US$643.11 billion) as of Oct. 11, down 12.2 percent, or 101.59 trillion won (US$89.66 billion), from 830.23 trillion won (US$732.77 billion) at the end of last year. The main KOSPI and secondary KOSDAQ indexes decreased 9.7 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively, over the same period.
The market capitalization of the five business groups has all shrunk since the beginning of the year. In particular, LG Group and Hyundai Motor Group marked the sharpest drop. LG Group’s market capitalization decreased by a fourth from 103.38 trillion won (US$90.94 billion) at the end of last year to 77.4 trillion won (US$68.3 billion). Hyundai Motor saw its market capitalization shrink by 17.9 percent from 95.53 trillion won (US$84.31 billion) to 78.65 trillion won (US$69.42 billion).
For LG Group, most of its main affiliates showed a fall in market capitalization. LG Electronics showed a drop of 41.2 percent, LG Display 41.9 percent, LG Corp. 30.8 percent and LG Chem 24.2 percent.
Among Hyundai Motor Group affiliates, Hyundai Motor saw its market capitalization decrease 27.8 percent, Kia Motors 1.1 percent, Hyundai Mobis 25.6 percent, Hyundai Glovis 18.7 percent and Innocean 28.9 percent.
The combined market capitalization of Samsung Group also dropped 10.4 percent from 475.13 trillion won (US$419.35 billion) to 425.52 trillion won (US$375.57 billion) over the same period. This was largely due to the poor performance of Samsung Electronics, which accounted for 69 percent of the total market capitalization of the group as of the end of last year. Samsung Electronics’ market capitalization decreased 15.8 percent from 328.94 trillion won (US$290.33 billion) to 276.67 trillion won (US$244.19 billion). On the other hand, the market capitalization of Samsung BioLogics, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Samsung SDI increased 25.8 percent, 25 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
SK Group saw its market capitalization fall 6 percent from 126.78 trillion won (US$111.9 billion) to 119.09 trillion won (US$105.11 billion), while Lotte Group showed a 3.87 percent drop from 29.11 trillion won (US$25.69 billion) to 27.98 trillion won (US$24.7 billion).
Meanwhile, Lotte Group was the only company that had a market capitalization increase in the past month, though the KOSPI fell 6.5 percent. The combined market capitalization of the five groups decreased 5.9 percent last month. LG Group and Hyundai Motor Group showed the largest drop by 10.6 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively.
SK Group and Samsung Group also saw their market capitalization decrease 4.7 percent and 5 percent, respectively. Only Lotte Group showed an increase of 0.9 percent. This was due to the fact that the market capitalization of Lotte Corp., Data Communication and Lotte Shopping grew 14.3 percent, 11.4 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively.