이 기사는 2021년 05월 06일 07시52분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Speculation is growing that Lee Boo-jin, the eldest daughter of Samsung’s late chairman Lee Kun-hee, may want to separate Hotel Shilla from the South Korea’s largest conglomerate after she inherited a larger portion of his father’s stock holdings than expected. But the separation appears unlikely at least in the next few years because of her inheritance tax burden.

The lee family, through its law firm Kim & Chang, on Friday reported inheritance taxes worth 12 trillion won ($10.7 billion) to tax authorities. The scions will pay the amount in six installments over five years, with a 2 trillion won first installment paid on the same day.

The late chairman’s shares in key affiliates, worth a whopping 24.6 trillion won, have been divided among Lee’s family members largely according to the inheritance ratio prescribed by the country’s law, according to a Friday regulatory filing. The decision was against market expectations that Lee Jae-yong, the group’s de facto leader, would inherit most of his father’s shares to strengthen his control over the conglomerate.

The late chairman’s wife Hong Ra-hee inherited the largest portion, or 7 trillion won worth of shares, and his three children – Jae-yong, Boo-jin and Seo-hyun – received shares worth 6.4 trillion won, 5.9 trillion won and 5.3 trillion won respectively. Each of them is expected to need to pay inheritance taxes worth half the value of their inherited shares.

Notably, holdings in key affiliates owned by Lee Boo-jin, the president and chief executive of Hotel Shilla and considered most similar to her father as a businessperson, have substantially increased.

With the inheritance, she earned a stake in Samsung Electronics and saw her interests in Samsung C&T and Samsung SDS rise alongside his brother. She also became a major shareholder in Samsung Life Insurance, which plays a key role in controlling Samsung Electronics in the group’s ownership structure, with a 7% stake after Samsung C&T with 19.3% and Lee Jae-yong with 10.44%.

With nearly 6 trillion won worth of shares on hand, Lee Boo-jin may want to use them to separate Hotel Shilla from Samsung, some industry watchers said. She joined the hotel in 2004 and has led its board of directors for the past 10 years, running the business virtually independently under Samsung’s umbrella. But she does not own a share in the hotel.

However, most industry watchers believe such scenario is unlikely because of her immense inheritance tax burden. They note that the Lee family decided to inherit the late chairman’s shares largely in line with the legal ratio probably so that each family member could use dividend payments to pay inheritance taxes.

Lee Boo-jin is estimated to earn a total of 240 billion won of dividend income each year from Samsung affiliates, including some 166 billion won from Samsung Electronics only. The amount is still insufficient to cover 2.7 trillion won of inheritance taxes that she needs to pay in the next five years.

Swapping inherited shares for a stake in Hotel Shilla to gain control over the hotel is not sensible as the hotel’s dividend payouts amount to only around 10 billion won. Divesting shares in key affiliates is also unlikely because that could affect the conglomerate’s broader ownership structure.

As a result, she is likely to retain her stakes in Samsung’s key affiliates until inheritance taxes are fully paid. If Lee intends to separate Hotel Shilla from the conglomerate in the longer term, she would unlikely raise her holdings in key affiliates, such as Samsung Life Insurance, either.

“I have nothing to comment on the possibility of Hotel Shilla being separated because we just don’t know what will happen at the moment,” an official at Samsung said. “The idea of President Lee increasing her control over the group’s financial services affiliates through Samsung Life is fresh but very unlikely.” (Reporting by Eun-jin Choi)