“No More SK Shares”

Sovereign Asset Management, the mother company of Crest Securities which has risen to be the largest shareholder of SK Corporation announced on April 18 that they “do not plan to add more SK shares to our current shareholding of 14.99 percent.”

This is to clarify rumors about Crest purchasing additional SK shares for an aggressive M&A after someone bought 480,000 shares of SK Corporation through Deutsch Securities on April 17.

“Crest is well aware that its buying additional shares would change the status of SK Corporation against SK Telecom according to the current rules,” Sovereign said. “Regarding this issue, we do not have any intention to cause such a change in the status of SK Telecom. Also, we would like to make clear that Crest does not have any intention to get involved in the management of SK Telecom.”

As the official position of Sovereign, SK Corporation and SK Telecom were relieved, but only currently.

SK Corporation plans to record some 241.9 billion won in losses as SK Shipping showed low sales achievements for the past few years. SK Corporation currently retains a 47.81 percent stake in SK Shipping. The total original capital amount was 328.5 billion won, but due to severe losses, its total amount of money stands at 86.6 billion won.

Joong-Hyun Park Suk-Ho Shin sanjuck@donga.com kyle@donga.com