Strengthening Pro-Shareholder Policies with Increased Dividends from Large Corporations

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] Major conglomerates are strengthening shareholder-friendly policies based on expanding dividends. In addition to basic dividends, they are returning value to shareholders by adding one-time special dividends using remaining resources.

SK Hynix announced on the 29th that it has decided on a year-end dividend of 1,170 KRW per share. The total dividend amount is 800.282 billion KRW.

SK Hynix's dividend this year was set based on its dividend policy of fixing a minimum of 1,000 KRW per share and paying an additional 5% of the annual free cash flow (FCF). Despite the COVID-19 situation this year, the company posted solid results, increasing the dividend per share by 170 KRW from last year’s 1,000 KRW. SK Hynix plans to maintain this dividend policy until the end of this year.

At the management performance briefing held that day, SK Hynix announced that its operating profit based on consolidated financial statements for last year was 5.0126 trillion KRW, an 84.3% increase compared to the previous year. During the same period, sales rose 18.2% to 31.9 trillion KRW, and net profit increased 136.9% to 4.7589 trillion KRW. The operating profit margin was recorded at 16%.

The day before, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics announced record-high dividend payments. Samsung Electronics plans to pay 1,932 KRW per share by adding a special dividend of 1,578 KRW to the existing year-end dividend of 354 KRW per common share. The total dividend amount exceeds 13 trillion KRW. The National Pension Service and the Samsung family receive dividends exceeding 1 trillion KRW. Along with this, Samsung Electronics maintained its existing policy of returning additional funds within 50% of FCF over three years if residual resources arise, while also raising the regular dividend size to 9.8 trillion KRW, presenting a new shareholder value enhancement plan.

LG Electronics, which enjoyed a COVID-19 boom and recorded its first-ever annual operating profit exceeding 3 trillion KRW since its founding, will pay the largest dividend in 11 years since 2010. The dividend amount increased by about 60% compared to the previous year. The total dividend amount is approximately 216.9 billion KRW for common shares and 21.5 billion KRW for preferred shares.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.