Market value of top 10 groups halved

There was no way even for Korea¡¯s top 10 business groups to avoid the stock price plunge.

The aggregate value of listed stocks of the top 10 groups, excluding Daewoo, declined by more than 80 trillion won compared to early this year. Samsung, ranked first in aggregate market value, topped the list in terms of lost value, and LG secured the first position in terms of the rate of decline.

Top 10 fall sharper than average:

The aggregate market value of the top 10 business groups fell drastically from 158.77 trillion won on Jan. 4 to 76.72 trillion won Dec. 26, the market¡¯s closing day of the year, resulting in the disappearance of 82.05 trillion won in just one year.

The average rate of decline for the top 10 groups was 51.7 percent, higher than the corresponding rate (47.4 percent) of all listed companies. As a result, the portion of the top 10 groups lowered somewhat from 44.4 percent of the total market value early this year to 40.8 percent on the year¡¯s closing day.

The number of groups with an aggregate market value of more than 10 trillion won dropped from the four -- Samsung, SK, LG, and Hyundai-- to just two -- Samsung and SK.

Samsung Group, ranked first in aggregate market value, saw its total fall by more than 34 trillion won from 71.8286 trillion won early this year to 37.7879 trillion won at the end of the year.

The aggregate market values of LG Group and Hyundai Group dropped by more than 70 percent each from early this year to around 25 percent.

In the meantime, the aggregate market values of Lotte and SK decreased 26.6 percent and 31.4 percent respectively, marking a relatively low loss rate.

Rankings see no change:

Although there were changes among groups in aggregate market value, there was no change in their rankings. Samsung, SK, LG, Hyundai, and Hanjin took the top five positions in terms of the aggregate market value.

In the case of the separation of Hyundai Motor Group from Hyundai Group in the wake of its winning of an approval for the separation of affiliates from the Fair Trade Commission in August this year, but the rankings are expected to change somewhat at the end of next year.

Samsung Group secured the No. 1 position firmly with 19.9 percent of the total market value. Five issues of Samsung Group affiliates stood among the top 20 list in terms of aggregate market value-- Samsung Electronics Co. (first), Samsung Electro-Mechanics (14th), Samsung SDI (15th), Samsung Securities (17th), Samsung Electronics preferred stocks (20th).

SK Telecom (second) and SK Corp. (19th) of SK Group were in the top 20 list, and LG Electronics (18th) of LG Group also made the list.

The aggregate market value of Samsung Electronics was 23.8959 trillion won, garnering the No.1 position. By numerical value, one could buy all listed affiliates of LG Group (5.8523 trillion won) and Hyundai Group (4.8167 trillion won), and have more than 10 trillion won in cash in remainder with the funds coming from the disposal of the single company Samsung Electronics.

Hong Sok-Min smhong@donga.com