SK Corp. secured trillions of funds through the sale of some stakes in SK Biopharm. It plans to invest in full investment in new growth businesses such as hydrogen. The transition to an investment company is expected to accelerate.
On the 24th, SK announced that it had sold 11% of SK Biopharm’s stake through an overtime mass sale (block deal). The sale price per share was 129800 won, a 12% discount from the previous day’s closing price of 147,500 won. The total sale amount is KRW 1,1163 trillion.
Block deals were organized by Korea Investment & Securities, Citi Global Market Securities, and Credit Switzerland. These organizers began to forecast demand after the market close the day before and pushed for block deals.
An official of SK Corp. explained, “We did not sell all of the stake to a specific person,” and “We sold the stake to an unspecified number of people through demand forecasting.”
SK Corp. aims to invest the secured funds into new growth businesses. It is a plan to accelerate its evolution as an investment company. Earlier, on the 10th of last month, the company invested 1.6 trillion won in plug power, a hydrogen company in the United States, making this year the first year of its four core businesses: advanced materials, green, bio, and digital.
An official of SK Corp. said, “Some are raising doubts that this block deal was promoted by subsidiary SK Innovation to set up a settlement fund before the battery lawsuit with LG Chem. It has nothing to do with block deals.” “SK Co., Ltd. will invest the full amount of funding for the new growth business disclosed at the beginning of this year,” he said. “We will consolidate our company-wide capabilities to become an investment company.”
Reporter Ryu Tae-woong [email protected]