November 26, 2024

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A skyline of Seoul’s financial district Yeouido (Herald DB)

State pension operators, including the National Pension Service, have offloaded more than 10 trillion won ($8.4 billion) worth of top-cap Samsung Electronics shares so far this year, and instead bought stakes in Kakao Pay, Krafton and Samsung Biologics, data from the Korea Exchange showed Dec. 28.

They dumped a combined 24.5 trillion won of local shares from the beginning of the year to Dec. 27. This compares to 25.7 trillion won worth of shares offloaded by foreigners in the cited period.

Of the total 24.5 trillion won, the institutional investors offloaded a combined 10.9 trillion won worth of Samsung Electronics shares. The amount accounted for nearly half of the Kospi shares it dumped in the cited period.

The NPS earlier announced it aims to downsize its Korean stock portfolio to 15 percent by 2025 from the 18.4 percent it stood at the end of September this year, in a bid to focus on overseas investment. The figure stood at 21.2 percent last year.

Alongside Samsung Electronics shares, the group cashed in 1.9 trillion won worth of LG Chem shares, 1.8 trillion won worth of SK hynix shares, 1.5 trillion worth of Naver shares, 1.1 trillion won worth of Hyundai Motor shares and 1.1 trillion worth of Samsung SDI shares.

Instead, they purchased 1.1 trillion-won worth of shares in local game developer Krafton, which went public on Aug. 10, in the same period. Krafton was the only locally listed company that the group purchased more than 1 trillion won worth of shares in.

The investors also purchased 671.8 billion won in Kakao Pay, 898.9 billion won in Samsung Biologics and 486.9 billion won in Hybe, K-pop sensation BTS’ management company, among its noticeable investments.

By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)