SKT, Major Stake Holder of KT with 11.34 Percent Share

The government has sold its entire share of KT for the purpose of privatization on May 21. KT is the major telecommunications business player in Korean market,

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The Ministry of Information and Telecommunications (MIT) sold all government share of 28.36 percent (a total of 88 million of KT stocks) to the potential investors including thirty enterprises, general investors, and institutional investors by receiving the application forms for stocks and exchange bonds (EB) between May 17 and 21.

SK Telecomm purchased a share of 1.79 percent of the EB on May 21. Therefore, the company became the major shareholder of KT by securing a total share of 11.34 percent including the already bought KT stocks of 9.55 percent share.

Additionally, LG Electronics has also secured all 2.27 percent share of the stocks by applying to take in all the assigned EB in the day. Daelim Industries also got 0.03 percent as an individual investor.

In all, the government sold fifty-one percent of its shares of the KT stocks in the domestic arena, and 49 percent was sold overseas.

The government has a plan to separate `ownership and management` by revising the company articles at a KT share holders` meeting in July. However, the government is actively seeking to revise partially an original plan that gave recommending powers for two or three outside executives to strategic investors of having more than three percent shares of the stocks even though the company is envisioned to manage with expert managers.

Accordingly, LG Electronics and Daelim Industries have a higher possibly of getting the recommendation right for outside executives.

Director of the telecommunications affairs division of the MIT Min Won-Ki said, `We could sell the largest volume of stocks in the Korean stock market history without doing any discounting,` and added, `We are searching various ways to guarantee fair competition, which was an original spirit of the privatization.`

Im-Sook Ha artemes@donga.com