Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jay-yong, second from right, inspects a factory in this undated photo released by the IT giant. Lee became the recipient of the largest dividend of 199.1 billion won ($157 million) in 2022. [Courtesy of Samsung Electronics]
The institute said the dividend cut was attributed to overall weak corporate performance amid sluggish exports and falling domestic demand in the wake of the global economic slump.
Leaders Index selected 50 out of the country's 100 largest companies -- in terms of market capitalization -- which have announced their decision to pay out dividend so far this year to analyze their dividend trend.
LG Household & Health Care showed the largest fall in its dividend payment. It cut its dividends by 66.6 percent to 67.1 billion won in 2022. POSCO Holdings' dividends plunged 59.9 percent to 151.7 billion won.
Lotte Chemical and Samsung Securities saw their dividends drop 58.2 percent and 55.3 percent, respectively. Meritz Financial Group logged a fall of 51.8 percent and SK Telecom 50.6.
However, SK Innovation, the energy and materials unit of SK Group, posted the largest increase of 128.4 percent with 481.6 billion in dividends.
Hyundai AutoEver recorded a 62.9 percent increase, followed by Hyundai Motor Co. with 51.1 percent and Hyundai Glovis with 50 percent. Their growth reflected strong performance of the domestic automotive industry last year.
Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chip and smartphone maker, decided to pay out 2.45 trillion won in dividends, the same as the previous year. The sum is seen as the largest among all listed companies in South Korea. Samsung, which pays quarterly dividends, already provided a total of 9.8 trillion won in dividends last year.
Hyundai Motor and its affiliated carmaker Kia decided to pay dividends of 1.57 trillion won and 1.4 trillion won, respectively.
Lee Jae-young, chairman of Samsung Electronics and chief of Samsung Group, became the recipient of the largest dividend of 199.1 billion won. However, the sum was down 58.6 billion won from a year before.
Chung Euisun, chairman of Hyundai Motor, was listed as the second largest dividend receiver with 103.1 billion won, followed by Lee Boo-jin, CEO of Hotel Shilla and sister of Chairman Lee, who garnered 93.2 billion won in dividends.
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