Investment Decrease
The National Pension Service (NPS) decreased its investment in the top 30 Korean business group shares by approximately 2.6 trillion won (US$2.4 billion). Samsung and Hyundai Motor Groups accounted for 94 percent of the reduction.
According to market research firm CEO Score, the agency’s shareholding in the 30 conglomerates added up to 52.6619 trillion won (US$48.4453 billion) as of Jan. 16, which was equivalent to 62.1 percent of the total domestic shares it owned. The amount and percentage are 2.5584 trillion won (US$2.3541 billion) and 3.7 percentage points less than at the end of 2013, respectively. This is mainly because the NPS decreased its shareholding in Samsung and Hyundai Motor from 36.7 percent to 33.4 percent during the same period.
At present, the NPS’s investment in Samsung is 19.5880 trillion won (US$18.0186 billion), and that in Hyundai Motor is 8.7799 trillion won (US$8.0924 billion). Its investment in the latter fell by 14.7 percent from 10.2937 trillion won (US$9.4877 billion) during the one-year period, while that of the former dropped by 4.4 percent, or 901.9 billion won (US$829.7 million).
In addition, the value of the agency’s investment in Hyundai Heavy Industries Group shares decreased by 74.3 percent, from 1.5636 trillion won (US$1.4387 billion) to 402.2 billion won (US$370.0 million). Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hyundai Mipo Shipyard and Hyundai Corporation recorded more than 2 trillion won (US$1.8 billion) in losses last year. The investment in Lotte, POSCO, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering was reduced by 722.8 billion won (US$664.9 million, 38.5 percent), 454.6 billion won (US$418.3 million, 17.2 percent), and 355.7 billion won (US$327.2 million, 58.2 percent) each.
In the meantime, the value of the SK Group shares owned by the agency has increased from 5.7417 trillion won (US$5.2921 billion) to 6.9583 trillion won (US$6.4011 billion) and its percentage went up by 1.4 percentage points to 8.2 percent. The NPS raised the ratio of SK Telecom shares from 5.7 percent to 7.1 percent and increased those of SK C&C and SK Networks shares to over 5.0 percent. The values were increased by 14.2 percent (684.5 billion won) for LG, 36.3 percent (435.3 billion won) for CJ, 157.9 percent (200.9 billion won) for Hanjin and 31.7 percent (159.4 billion won) for Young Poong, too. In summary, the value of the invested shares increased for 12 out of the 30 groups whereas it decreased for 14.
The NPS’s stock investment portfolio is showing some change these days, too. Its investment in domestic shares increased by 1 trillion won (US$919 million) to about 85 trillion won (US$78 billion) between 2013 and 2014. But the ratio to its total stock investment fell from 65.4 percent to 60.6 percent. Meanwhile, the amount and ratio of its overseas stock investment went up from 44 trillion won (US$40.5 billion) to 55 trillion won (US$50.7 billion) and from 34.6 percent to 39.4 percent, respectively.