Hyundai Investment & Securities suggested a 'buy' rating for SK Telecom. Although it faced a penalty surcharge of over 130 billion won due to personal information leakage, it is anticipated that both trust will be restored and the stock price will gradually rise. The target price remains at 61,000 won.
According to Hyundai Investment & Securities on the 29th, SK Telecom was imposed a penalty surcharge of 134.791 billion won by the Personal Information Protection Commission on the 27th for violating the Personal Information Protection Act. A fine of 9.6 million won was also imposed due to the delay in notifying the leakage of personal information.
Previously, on April 18th, a hacking incident occurred where the entire subscriber's SIM information leaked from SK Telecom's core server (HSS). This was viewed as the largest penalty surcharge by the Personal Information Protection Commission as a government-level sanction.
Hyundai Investment & Securities projected a high likelihood that SK Telecom's net profit will turn to a loss in the third quarter. This assessment is based on expected significant operating profit reductions due to sales deductions from August discounts and costs of waived penalties.
Still, it is believed that the risk of a stock price decline is not high. Hyundai Investment & Securities evaluated that SK Telecom is in a position to secure liquidity through measures such as issuing corporate bonds from its subsidiary SK Broadband and re-pursuing the sale of SK Stoa, projecting that the scale of dividends will also be maintained.
Kim Jeong-chan, a researcher at Hyundai Investment & Securities, noted, 'The stock price of SK Telecom fell by only 0.9% the previous day,' adding, 'There are no immediate observable risks, and considering the high dividend yield of 6.4% and the normalization of next year's results, buying is a rational choice.'