SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won will offload a 2.26% stake in SK Corp for roughly 944 billion won, about $700 million at current rates, to satisfy a court-ordered divorce settlement, the conglomerate disclosed on Oct 2. The block trade, scheduled to begin Nov 2, leaves Chey as the holding company’s largest shareholder with 15.49%, but it also marks the first concrete step in converting a record Korean family-law award into liquid capital.
The settlement that forced the sale
A Seoul court ordered Chey to pay 944 billion won to his former spouse Roh Soh-yeong roughly two months ago, a sum analysts immediately flagged as large enough to require asset sales or borrowing. The award stands as the largest cash divorce settlement in South Korean history, though it is substantially below the 1.38 trillion won an appeals court had ordered in 2024 before the case reached its final judgment. The company’s filing does not specify whether the shares will be sold via accelerated bookbuild, a negotiated block, or over the exchange, nor does it disclose any discount to the undisturbed price, details that would clarify how much of the stake’s paper value survives the transaction.
What the stake represents
SK Corp sits atop the group’s most valuable asset: SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker. Chey’s remaining 15.49% gives him effective control of the holding company, but the disposed 2.26% represented a meaningful slice of free float. At the filing’s implied valuation, the entire SK Corp equity would be worth roughly 41.8 trillion won. The source does not state whether Chey has pledged any of his remaining shares as collateral for other obligations, a common feature in Korean chaebol governance that would further constrain his maneuvering room.
The missing terms
The regulatory filing is silent on break fees, lock-up periods for the buyer, or any conditionality tied to the divorce decree’s finality. It also does not say whether Roh receives the shares directly or the cash proceeds, a distinction that matters for tax treatment and for whether the stake ends up in the market or in a family trust. Until those details surface, the market can only price the overhang, not the structure.