KB Securities said on the 4th that SK is carrying out its plan to enhance corporate value and that its price-to-book ratio (P/B) is expected to rise. It kept its investment rating at Buy and raised its target price to 465,000 won from 390,000 won. SK's closing price in the previous session was 379,500 won.
Park Geon-young, an analyst at KB Securities, said, "In its corporate value enhancement plan in Oct. 2024, SK set a target return on equity (ROE) of '10% or higher from 2027' and a P/B target of '0.7 times in 2024–2026 and 1.0 times from 2027,'" adding, "To that end, it formalized shareholder return policies such as portfolio rebalancing (weight readjustment) and setting a minimum dividend per share (DPS)."
Park said, "After that, last year's DPS was 8,000 won, exceeding the minimum DPS of 5,000 won and the prior year's DPS of 7,000 won, and as of the previous day the P/B was around 0.9 times."
KB Securities expected consolidated ROE to exceed 10% this year and next year on the back of higher equity-method gains.
SK signed a contract to sell a 13.9% equity stake in SK Biopharmaceuticals at 114,500 won per share, and is expected to secure a total of 1.25 trillion won. At the same time, it will execute a 3-year price return swap (PRS) using the same quantity as the underlying asset, with plans to mutually settle the difference between the eventual sale price and the reference price.
Park said, "This is seen as part of the rebalancing," adding, "With the sale process of SK Siltron and others underway, rebalancing that combines asset monetization and financial structure improvement is likely to continue this year as well."