이 기사는 2022년 01월 20일 08:08 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

Lee Myung-hee, mother of Hanjin Group chairman Cho Won-tae, offloaded part of her stake in Hanjin KAL, the conglomerate’s holding company, in October last year, two years after she inherited shares from her late husband and the company’s former largest shareholder Cho Yang-ho in 2019, a recent filing showed.

The filing said that Lee sold 650,000 shares, or 0.97% of all Hanjin KAL shares, on October 26 via a block deal at a price of 53,289 won ($44.73) each, which represented a discount of 7.6% to the closing price of 57,700 won on that day.

The transaction, which is estimated to have fetched about 34.6 billion won, reduced her stake in Hanjin KAL to 3.71%. The filing did not provide details on who bought the shares or the purpose of the sale.

Lee is the first among allies of Cho Won-tae to sell shares in Hanjin KAL. After the death of the late chairman in 2019, Hanjin’s Cho family was divided over control of the conglomerate, with the chairman’s elder sister, Hyun-ah, tying up with private equity firm KCGI and Bando Construction against Cho and his mother and younger sister.

Speculation has arisen that Lee’s sale of shares in Hanjin KAL could reignite a management dispute between the two sides. But many industry experts think that is unlikely.

Cho and his allies – his mother and younger sister and Delta Air Lines – together had slightly less voting power than the KCGI-led alliance even before Lee sold shares in Hanjin KAL in October, indicating that her share sale will likely have little impact on the situation.

Korea Development Bank (KDB)’s presence as a shareholder of Hanjin KAL is also an important factor. The state-controlled lender, the largest creditor of the debt-ridden Asiana Airlines, bought 10.5% of the holding company in 2020 as part of a deal where Hanjin’s Korean Air agreed to acquire Asiana to create the country’s biggest airline.

At the time, Cho and his mother and younger sister agreed to vote their shares in favor of an outside director and an auditor nominated by KDB.

With KDB owning a sizable minority stake in Hanjin KAL and acting in favor of Cho, the management dispute came to an end. The KCGI-led alliance was officially dismissed in April 2021.

What is also notable is that KCGI and Bando signed an memorandum of understanding with KDB on November 9 – about dozen days after Lee sold part of her shares in Hanjin KAL – to cooperate on the holding company’s transparent and ethical operations and increasing the competitiveness of the airline industry.

“We will play a role as one of Hanjin KAL’s major shareholders along with KDB and Bando to help the company improve its corporate governance,” KCGI said at the time. (Reporting by Su-jin Yoo)