Samsung to buy back shares worth 2.19 trillion won
Samsung Electronics plans to buy back shares valued at 2.19 trillion won (HK$15.3 billion) after its parent group announced the sale of stakes in chemicals and defence businesses in its biggest restructuring.
Samsung Electronics plans to buy back shares valued at 2.19 trillion won (HK$15.3 billion) after its parent group announced the sale of stakes in chemicals and defence businesses in its biggest restructuring.
Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, will buy 1.65 million common shares and 250,000 preferred stock, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
The South Korean company, with a market value of 176.9 trillion won, will buy stock from the market by February 26 next year.
The announcement comes as Korea's largest business group said earlier yesterday it would dispose of stakes in the chemicals and defence businesses for 1.9 trillion won to Hanwha Group, a conglomerate that has been making explosives for more than six decades.
The group is reorganising its business empire to make it easier for the son and two daughters of Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee, who has been in hospital since a May heart attack, to share out the conglomerate. This has included stake transfers between Samsung units intended to narrow the sprawling group's focus.
The heirs are also trying to find ways to pay an estimated 6 trillion won inheritance tax bill. The listing of Samsung SDS and the upcoming initial public offering of Cheil Industries would provide greater financial flexibility to manage that process.