Samsung owner family sees stock valuation double this year

The owner family of Samsung Group, led by Chairman Lee Kun-hee, has been found to have the value of their listed share holdings almost double during one year.

According to chaebul.com`s valuation of the listed share owned by the top 10 Chaebol families based on market capitalization, the Lee family`s total share amounted to 23 billion U.S. dollars. This is a 94.5 % (11 billion dollars) increase from 12 billion dollars, which was the valuation of the Lee family`s listed share holdings as of Jan. 2, 2014.

The substantial increase in listed shares owned by the Lee family owes to Samsung SDS and Cheil Industries listing on the Korea Exchange, which pushed up the value of the ownership of listed stocks of three children of Lee Kun-hee, including those of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

The value of the juniors` shares has increased by more than 11 billion dollars since the beginning of the year. Vice Chairman Lee’s listed share valuations have surged by 608.2 % to 7.1 billion dollars from early this year. In addition, his sisters, Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Bu-jin and Cheil Industries CEO Lee Seo-hyun, who had owned no stock at all as of early 2014, now own 2 billion dollars respectively in listed shares due to Samsung SDS and Cheil Industries going public.