SEOUL, November 05 (AJP) -SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has raised 944 billion won ($703 million) through a sale of shares in the group's holding company to finance his divorce settlement.
SK Inc. disclosed Thursday that Chey had disposed of 1,653,924 shares through two off-market transactions, reducing his personal stake from 17.76 percent to 15.49 percent. He remains the company's largest shareholder.
The transactions, recorded as effective on November 2, involved 972,493 shares sold at 559,387 won apiece and another 681,431 shares priced at 587,000 won.
Both prices were substantially higher than Thursday's closing price of 482,500 won, when SK Inc. shares tumbled 6.85 percent amid a broader rout in Korean equities.
At Thursday's closing price, the shares Chey disposed of would have been worth about 798 billion won — roughly 146 billion won less than the agreed transaction value.
Of the 944 billion won, 544 billion won came from a sale to DFO Public Investments, a strategic investor linked to the family of Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell.
The remaining 400 billion won involved Korea Investment & Securities under a three-year price return swap (PRS) arrangement. The structure provides immediate funds but requires a subsequent settlement reflecting changes in the underlying share value, leaving Chey exposed to future price movements.
The proceeds match the 944 billion won that the Seoul High Court ordered Chey to pay his former wife, Roh Soh-yeong, director of Art Center Nabi, in a July retrial of their high-profile divorce settlement.
The ruling reduced the original 1.38 trillion-won property division award after the Supreme Court overturned that portion of the earlier judgment in October 2025.
The legal dispute remains unresolved. Chey has appealed again to the Supreme Court, contesting 244 billion won of the latest award while accepting the remaining 700 billion won.
Following the share disposal, the combined ownership of Chey and related parties declined from 25.21 percent to 22.93 percent, according to Thursday's regulatory filing. The reduction also reflects the removal of former SK executive Jang Dong-hyun's 13,190 shares from the affiliated-shareholder tally.
Chey's position as the largest shareholder remains intact, limiting the immediate implications for his control of the conglomerate.
The disclosure came on a day when the chairman himself warned that the stock market could face prolonged turbulence from the enormous amount of money flowing into artificial intelligence.
Speaking before about 450 students at Seoul National University, Chey said the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections had unsettled semiconductor investors and exposed the fragility of an AI-driven market rally.
"Judging by how much stocks fell today, the market seems to have concluded that the midterm election results were not particularly good for semiconductors," he said.
Samsung Electronics sank 7.57 percent to 201,500 won, while SK hynix, the group's AI memory powerhouse, plunged 9.46 percent to 1,264,000 won.
The selling followed a decline of about 3.1 percent in both Nvidia shares and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index on Wednesday amid concerns that Democratic victories in U.S. states hosting major data center developments could lead to tighter restrictions on AI infrastructure expansion.
Chey attributed the market's violent swings partly to excess liquidity concentrated in AI and semiconductor stocks.
"Too much money has already been pumped into the market," he said, warning that stocks that had risen too rapidly could also fall sharply.
"These roller-coaster market conditions are bound to continue."
Yet he remained convinced that the AI investment race offered companies little choice but to keep spending.
Referring to the group's long-term investment ambitions of 2,100 trillion won, Chey said the scale of global competition had fundamentally changed.
"The whole world is in this game," he said. "We cannot catch up unless we make bets on this scale."
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