A record high of children own valuable stock

As more owner families of conglomerates give stocks to their children as gifts, the number of children owning stocks with values exceeding 100 million won (91,000 U.S. dollars) has reached a record high of 118, including a baby aged below two years.

The website www.chaebul.com, which provides information about Korea’s richest people, reported Sunday based on a survey of shares owned by those related to major shareholders of listed companies that 118 children aged below 12 have owned stocks worth more than 100 million won (91,000 dollars) as of April 30. The figure was 102 last year. Two of them owned stocks worth more than 10 billion won (9.1 million dollars) and 29 children had shares with more than a billion won (910,000 dollars) worth.

The child with the biggest stock value worth 42.99 billion won (40 million dollars) was the son of Huh Yong-su, the vice president of GS Energy and a cousin of GS Group Chairman Huh Chang-su. The child’s 9-year-old brother had the second most with a value of 17.46 billion won (16 million dollars). Seven grand children of Lim Seong-gi, chairman of Hanmi Pharmaceutical Company, were ranked from third through ninth by having stocks worth from 8.4 to 8.6 billion won (7.6 to 7.8 million dollars). These children ranging from a five-year-old to a 10-year-old received shares of Hanmi Science and Pharmaceutical companies as gifts.

A nephew of Koo Bon-chun, CEO of LB Investment who is a son-in-law of Lee Sang-deuk, a former Rep. and older brother of former President Lee Myung-bak, and a granddaughter of Song Gong-seok, CEO of Watos Corea, are both younger than one-year-old but owned shares worth 160 million won (146,000 dollars) and 100 million won (91,000 dollars), respectively. A two-year-old daughter of Kim Heung-jun, chairman of Gyeongin Corporation, also had stocks worth more than tens of thousands of dollars.