이 기사는 2022년 02월 11일 08시04분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Shinsegae Group’s heiress Chung Yoo-kyung is set to pocket about 7.1 billion won ($5.9 million) in dividend income, which will help her fund the annual installment payment on a 104.5 billion won gift tax bill.

Shinsegae Inc and Shinsegae International earlier this week announced a final cash dividend of 3,000 won per share and 1,500 won per share for 2021 respectively.

Dividend yields as of the end of December 2021 stand at 1.21% and 1.02%, respectively, up 0.61 percentage points and 0.32 percentage points from the year before.

Chung, Shinsegae Inc’s president, is expected to collect 5.5 billion won from Shinsegae Inc and 1.6 billion won from Shinsegae International in dividends, with a total of 7.1 billion won almost doubling from 4 billion won that she received in the prior year.

The increased dividend income will help Chung pay gift tax. In 2020, her mother and Shinsegae Group chairwoman, Lee Myung-hee, gifted to Chung 859,668 shares in Shinsegae Inc worth 170 billion won, which triggered a tax liability of 104.5 billion won.

Chung decided to settle the bill in equal annual installments over five years, with 500,000 shares in Shinsegae Inc parked with a tax office as collateral.

Many expected Chung to sell some of her shares in Shinsegae International to pay the tax bill as she did in 2018 when her father and Shinsegae Group’s honorary chairman, Chung Jae-eun, gifted to her 1.5 million shares in the fashion company.

However, she opted to take out a 40 billion won loan by pledging 300,000 shares in Shinsegae Inc as collateral to pay the second installment last year.

Chung took a loan instead of selling shares because of a decline in the price of Shinsegae International shares, which recently traded at around 140,000 won apiece, down 40% from the average level in 2019.

The falling share price means Chung needs to sell more shares to raise the money needed to pay the tax, which as a result would weaken her control of the fashion company.

Fortunately for Chung, Shinsegae Inc and Shinsegae International significantly raised their dividends for the past fiscal year thanks to strong earnings results.

In 2021, Shinsegae Inc generated a record operating profit of 517 billion won on consolidated revenue of 6.3 trillion won, up 32% year-on-year. Shinsegae International’s revenue rose 9.5% to 1.45 trillion won, the largest in the company’s history.

“As announced last year, we planned to pay the greater of 10% of operating profits or 1,500 won per share in dividend, and the strongest-ever operating profits enabled us to raise dividend to 3,000 won per share for 2021,” an official at Shinsegae Inc said, adding that the company intended to continue to increase shareholder returns. (Reporting by Geul-ah Bang)