Samsung Elec. pays largest dividends to foreigners

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics turned out to have paid the largest amount of dividend to foreign shareholders followed by POSCO and SK Telecom (SKT) among December-closing listed companies. Foreign shareholders were awarded a combined dividend of 463.9 billion won ($398.93 million) from the nation’s tech giant Samsung Electronics for Samsung’s successful business performance last year, according to a report of the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) Thursday. POSCO (310.7 billion won), SKT (273.3 billion), KT&G (263.5 billion), KT (250.1 billion), Hyundai Motor (227.3 billion won), Shinhan Financial Group (208.0 billion won), KB Financial Group (171.5 billion won), LG Chem (95.4 billion won), and SK Innovation (79.9 billion won) followed. Megastudy (14.5 billion won) topped the dividend payout among KOSDAQ-listed companies, followed by GS Home Shopping (8.6 billion won) and Daum Communications (5.7 billion won). December-closing companies paid a total of 3.86 trillion won to foreign shareholders in dividend payout, down 11.0 percent from a year earlier. 884 companies paid dividends to shareholders, and the dividend payouts to foreigners fell more steeply than the total dividend payouts, which contracted 4.0 percent on-year. Such decline was attributed to overall slump in stock prices and reduced shares held by foreign investors due to the financial crisis initiated in Europe, the KSD estimated. By country, investors from the US took the largest amount of dividends of 1.78 trillion won, and the amount accounts for 46.1 percent of aggregate dividends paid to foreign shareholders. Investors from the UK (374.2 billion won) and Luxemburg (249.3 billion won) ranked second and third, respectively.