30s Group Public Foundations Increased Affiliate Shares but Decreased Donations to Affiliates

Leaders Index Full Survey
Public Interest Foundation's Stock Holdings Triple in 6 Years
Affiliate Dividend Income Soars

Although the stock assets of affiliates held by public interest foundations belonging to the top 30 conglomerates increased, the donations they received from their affiliates actually decreased.

High-rise buildings in Yeouido. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

On the 13th, Leaders Index, a corporate analysis research institute, conducted a full survey of the financial statements submitted to the National Tax Service by public interest foundations belonging to the top 30 conglomerates in the business world. As a result, last year, 38 public interest foundations held stocks in 234 companies. This figure is more than three times higher than in 2017, when 35 public interest foundations held stocks in a total of 76 companies, marking a six-year increase.

In particular, most of the stocks held by these public interest foundations (an average of 93.1%) were stocks of their respective affiliates. Although the proportion of stock assets increased, donations from affiliates decreased by 29.4%, from 239.2 billion KRW in 2017 to 168.8 billion KRW last year.

The proportion of donations contributed by affiliates in the total donations also decreased. In 2017, 95.0% of the total donations (251.8 billion KRW) to public interest foundations came from affiliates, but last year, the affiliate share was only 74.6% of the total donations (226.3 billion KRW).

On the other hand, dividend income of public interest foundations through affiliates increased from 60.8 billion KRW in 2017 to 193.7 billion KRW last year.

Among the public interest foundations belonging to the top 30 conglomerates, the foundation with the highest proportion of affiliate stocks in total assets was SM Group’s Samra Hope Foundation. This foundation holds 93.5% of its total assets in the form of affiliate stocks. Next was Samsung’s Samsung Welfare Foundation with 90.4% affiliate stock proportion. Following were Kakao Group’s Brian Impact (79.6%), Hanjin Group’s Jungseok Logistics Academic Foundation (79.5%), DL Group’s Daelim Cultural Foundation (74.3%), and CJ Group’s CJ Nanum Foundation (70.9%), which also held large amounts of affiliate stock assets.

In addition, Kumho Cultural Foundation (69.0%), LG Yeonam Academy (66.7%), Samsung Cultural Foundation (65.3%), Pohang University of Science and Technology (60.3%), Doosan Yeongang Foundation (56.3%), and LG Yeonam Cultural Foundation (56.1%) were found to hold more than 50% of their total assets in affiliate stocks.

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