Key points
- Lee Jae-yong buys 1.9 trillion won of Samsung shares
- The seller is his mother
- The sale is linked to inheritance-tax borrowing
- The price is Tuesday's closing price
Samsung's chairman is buying almost 2 trillion won of Samsung Electronics stock from his mother. Lee Jae-yong will take 7,188,793 common shares from Hong Ra-hee on October 12, in a private deal disclosed on Wednesday. The backdrop is a tax bill the family finished paying in April.
The shares are priced at 269,500 won each, which makes the deal worth 1.9374 trillion won ($1.45B), Money Today (머니투데이) reported. Lee's holding in Samsung Electronics goes from 1.47 percent to 1.58 percent. His mother's falls from about 1.1 percent to about 0.9 percent.
That price is worth a second look. Samsung Electronics closed at 269,500 won on Tuesday, and closed there again on Wednesday, so the family deal is being done at the market price rather than at the discount a large block usually carries.
The sale is widely seen as a way to reduce her borrowing. Her loans grew from 1.78 trillion won ($1.33B) in June last year to 2.99 trillion won ($2.23B) by June this year, an increase of about 68 percent.
The bill behind all of it came from the death of Lee Kun-hee, Samsung's former chairman. His estate was valued at about 26 trillion won ($19.4B) and the tax on it came to about 12 trillion won ($8.97B), equivalent to about 46 percent of the estate's stated value. The family paid it in six installments over five years and finished in April 2026. Hong carried the largest share of that bill, ahead of her son and her two daughters.
Doing the trade off the exchange avoids placing the entire block on the open market at once. Samsung itself is staying out of it. "This is a transaction between individual major shareholders, so the company has no official position," the company said, in comments translated from Korean.
Lee covered his own share of the tax differently. He used dividends and personal credit rather than selling stock, Money Today reported, which puts unusual weight on what Samsung chooses to pay out.
The purchase is set to go through on October 12.
Quotes from Korean-language sources are translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at 1,338 won to the dollar, the Naver Finance rate on September 9, 2026.
