By Joyce Lee
SEOUL -Samsung Electronics shares worth about $1.1 billion were sold in a block deal on Thursday, according to a document, which some analysts attributed to the Samsung conglomerate’s controlling family raising cash to meet a big tax bill.
About 19.9 million Samsung shares were sold by Kookmin Bank at 68,800 won per share, a discount of 2.4% to Wednesday’s closing price of 70,500 won, a term sheet of the deal seen by Reuters showed.
Samsung Electronics did not have a comment on the sale.
But the shares on sale matched the amount that Hong Ra-hee, mother of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee and wife of deceased Samsung patriarch Lee Kun-hee, agreed to keep in trust with Kookmin Bank in October, according to a Samsung Electronics filing that month.
The trust agreement period was due to end by April 25, the filing showed.
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Since patriarch Lee died in 2020, Samsung’s controlling family decided to use shares in affiliated companies to pay part of more than $10 billion in inheritance tax, people with direct knowledge of the matter previously told Reuters.
The tax code allows payment in instalments, with one-sixth of the total to be paid first, and the remainder over five years with an annual interest rate. Even in instalments, analysts expect over 2 trillion won ($1.64 billion) to be due annually.
“The owner family is likely to sell additional shares to secure funds for inheritance tax,” said Choi Kwan-soon, an analyst at SK Securities. Samsung Electronics’ share price was down 1% at 69,900 won in early afternoon trade, versus a 0.5% fall in the wider market.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Kookmin were bookrunners for the sale.
($1 = 1,220.1500 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Muralikumar Anantharaman)