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About 19.9 million Samsung shares were sold by Kookmin Bank at
68,800 won per share, a discount of 2.4% to Wednesday's closing
price of 70,500 won, a term sheet of the deal seen by Reuters
showed.
Samsung Electronics did not have a comment on the sale.
But the shares on sale matched the amount that Hong Ra-hee,
mother of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee and wife
of deceased Samsung patriarch Lee Kun-hee, agreed to keep in
trust with Kookmin Bank in October, according to a Samsung
Electronics filing that month.
The trust agreement period was due to end by April 25, the
filing showed.
Since patriarch Lee died in 2020, Samsung's controlling family
decided to use shares in affiliated companies to pay part of
more than $10 billion in inheritance tax, people with direct
knowledge of the matter previously told Reuters.
The tax code allows payment in instalments, with one-sixth of
the total to be paid first, and the remainder over five years
with an annual interest rate. Even in instalments, analysts
expect over 2 trillion won ($1.64 billion) to be due annually.
"The owner family is likely to sell additional shares to secure
funds for inheritance tax," said Choi Kwan-soon, an analyst at
SK Securities. Samsung Electronics' share price was down 1% at
69,900 won in early afternoon trade, versus a 0.5% fall in the
wider market.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Kookmin were bookrunners for the
sale.
($1 = 1,220.1500 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Sumeet
Chatterjee; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Muralikumar
Anantharaman)
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