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Research Article

Split-off of LG Chem and Spin-off of SK Telecom

Jinwoo Park

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Published: January 2022 · Vol. 26, No. 3 · pp. 71-93
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Abstract

On September 2020 LG Chem split off its business unit of storage battery and decided to set up a subsidiary named as LG Energy Solution. However, the shareholers were very disappointed since the split-off did not offer shares of the new subsidiary to them, who bought LG Chem’s stock with expectation for its business unit of storage battery. As a result, the stock price of LG Chem fell by 11.5%, causing a drop in its market value by 6 trillion Won. Nevertheless, LG Chem chose the split-off instead of the spin-off as a divestiture method since the split-off is advantageous to financing a huge amount of capital expenditure for LG Energy Solution. On January 2022 LG Energy Solution raised 10.2 trillion Won through initial public offering(IPO) and became the second largest firm in Korea with the market value of 118 trillion Won. In the meantime, however, the stock price of LG Chem dropped by almost 16%, causing a serious damage to shareholder value. On April 2021 SK Telecom announced the spin-off of mid-holding company named as SK Square, which holds shares of SK Telecom subsidiaries except telecomunications business. The spin-off of SK Telecom proceeded without shareholders’ opposition since shares outstanding are proportioned on a pro rata basis, resulting in a favorable impact on the stock price. However, the stock price of SK Square slumped because the stock market interpreted that the main purpose of the SK Telecom’s spin-off was to solve the dilemma of SK Hynix as a grandchild company in the SK group. The market expected that SK, the holding company, might merge SK Square with the merger ratio unfavorable to SK Square. These results of the case study imply that the purpose of corporate divestiture may be in conflict with the shareholders’ interests. In order to protect investors policy authority should come up with an effective measure to regulate the corporate divestiture in Korea.
Keywords: 기업분할인적분할물적분할LG화학SK텔레콤