General Motors' Korea operation (GM Korea) set dividends at 123.5 billion won. This is the first dividends by GM Korea in 11 years since 2014, and the payout is being made under the obligation to pay a cash dividend at 1% of the preferred stock issue price.
According to GM Korea's audit report on the 10th, GM Korea finalized the 2025 cash dividend at 123.556 billion won. This is a preferred dividend, setting the per-share dividend at 339.7 won (84.9%). A GM Korea official said, "From the time the preferred shares were issued to the end of last year, we recorded the plan to fulfill the obligations in the audit report."
GM Korea announced on the 6th that it held a board meeting on the 3rd and resolved to pay an interim dividend to shareholders. While some projected the amount could reach into the trillions of won, GM Korea said that day, "We cannot disclose the size of the dividends."
In Dec. last year, GM Korea held an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders and converted 4.346545 trillion won of share premium from capital surplus into retained earnings. Under the Commercial Act, capital surplus cannot be used as a resource for dividends to shareholders, but retained earnings can be used for shareholder returns. In effect, it secured resources available for paying dividends.
GM Korea, which recorded net debt of 184.4 billion won in 2022, was found to be holding more than 3 trillion won in net cash three years later. GM Korea earlier returned to the black in 2022 and posted operating profits of 1.3506 trillion won in 2023 and 1.3573 trillion won in 2024.
However, both annual revenue and operating profit decreased last year. GM Korea posted revenue of 12.6128 trillion won and operating profit of 489.7 billion won last year. Revenue fell 12.2% from 2024 (14.3771 trillion won), and operating profit dropped 63.9% from a year earlier (1.3572 trillion won).