FOR many South Korean consumers, the chaebol, family-owned conglomerates that are into everything from electronics to amusement parks, are a source of pride. For investors, they can be a headache. Shareholders were reminded of this in May when Samsung proposed to merge two of its affiliates: Cheil Industries, the group’s de facto holding company, and Samsung C&T, the country’s biggest construction firm (it put up the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai).
When the deal was announced, Cheil’s share price was around its highest since its IPO in December, and that of C&T was near a five-year low. CLSA, a stockbroker, said the deal would give Cheil the core operations of C&T “effectively for free”, after subtracting the value of its stakes in other group companies. That would suit Lee Jae-yong, the only son of Samsung’s chairman, Lee Kun-hee. The elder Mr Lee has been in hospital for over a year since a heart attack; his son is preparing to pay about $5 billion in inheritance tax while keeping family control of the group, through small stakes in a hairball of cross-shareholdings. The merger...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1LYv3G6
No comments:
Post a Comment