Among the top 500 Korea-listed corporations by market capitalization, 80 corporations retired treasury shares totaling 2.1 trillion won last year.
According to corporate data research firm CEO Score on the 21st, a survey of 479 corporations, excluding newly listed companies, among the top 500 by market capitalization found that 80 companies retired treasury shares worth a total of 2.09955 trillion won.
Samsung Electronics retired the most treasury shares, retiring a total of 304.87 billion won worth, accounting for 14.5% of the total.
Next, HMM retired all of its treasury shares worth 214.32 billion won to boost shareholder value, and Korea Zinc, which is in a management control dispute, retired 181.56 billion won worth from the treasury shares it purchased the previous year.
In addition, Meritz Financial Group (155.17 billion won), KB Financial (120 billion won), Samsung C&T (93.22 billion won), KT&G (92.63 billion won), and Hyundai Motor (91.6 billion won) ranked high in treasury share retirements.
During the same period, 108 corporations disposed of treasury shares, with total disposals reaching 312.73 billion won. Of this, 202.45 billion won (64.7%) was used for employee compensation. Hyundai Motor disposed of 530.2 billion won worth of treasury shares for employee compensation, the largest amount, followed by Samsung Electronics (342.9 billion won) and SK hynix (307.6 billion won).
Disposals of treasury shares for financing purposes totaled 72.95 billion won, or 23.3% of the whole. A representative case was Lotte Corporation selling 147.7 billion won worth of treasury shares to Lotte Property & Development to improve its financial structure.
Meanwhile, 102 corporations newly acquired treasury shares last year, with the aggregates amounting to about 2.1 trillion won. Samsung Electronics led with 818.84 billion won. It was followed by HMM (214.32 billion won), KB Financial (148 billion won), Meritz Financial Group (131.73 billion won), and Shinhan Financial Group (125 billion won).
The corporation with the highest treasury share holding ratio was Shinyoung Securities at 51.23%. Bookook Securities (42.73%), Hanssem (29.46%), and SNT Dynamics (28.94%) also ranked near the top.
CEO Score said this was the result of corporations actively pursuing strategies to use treasury shares in preparation for the third amendment to the Commercial Act, which would mandate the retirement of treasury shares.