About 19.9 million Samsung shares were sold
by Kookmin Bank at KRW 68,800 per share, a discount of 2.4 percent to
Wednesday's closing price of KRW 70,500, 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 KRW 2
trillion 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 percent at KRW 69,900 in early afternoon trade, versus a 0.5 percent
fall in the wider market.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Kookmin were
bookrunners for the sale. © Reuters