For Liquidity or Governance?
Samsung SDI, Samsung Card, and KCC decided to sell their Cheil Industries (former Samsung Everland) shares partly in step with the initial public offering of Cheil Industries.
Samsung SDI announced on Oct. 30 that it was planning to sell half of its 8 percent of Cheil Industries shares through secondary distribution. Samsung Card also announced that it will dispose of all of its 5 percent shares on the Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART) of the Financial Supervisory Service. KCC, which owns 17 percent of Cheil Industries shares, is going to sell 6 percent. Samsung Card mentioned financial structural improvement and investment resources preparation as its reasons, and KCC mentioned investment recovery.
Market experts point out that the decision has to do with liquidity supply for a successful listing of Cheil Industries rather than the corporate governance issue. “If the decision had been based on the governance structure, they should have bought more shares,” said a local fund manager, adding, “Given that Cheil Industries can enjoy a significant stock price rise after the IPO, the shareholders may call the partial disposal into question later.”
In the meantime, Cheil Industries will issue 10 million new shares for the listing. The amount is equivalent to 7.4 percent of total shares outstanding. The company is going to submit its securities report to the Financial Services Commission on Oct. 31. The listing is scheduled for Dec. 18.