SK Telecom’s Hynix Stake Purchase Gets Korean Regulator Approval
December 27, 2011, 7:21 PM ESTBy Saeromi Shin
Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- SK Telecom Co. won the antitrust regulator’s approval to acquire a 21 percent stake in Hynix Semiconductor Inc., bringing South Korea’s biggest mobile-phone carrier one step closer to completing the transaction.
The Fair Trade Commission approved the purchase, according to an e-mailed statement from the regulator today.
Seoul-based SK Telecom last month agreed to pay 3.4 trillion won ($3 billion) to buy the shares that brings the mobile-phone operator into the $39 billion annual market for computer-memory chips, dominated by Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. The sale, when completed, would end a two-year effort by Hynix shareholders to dispose of the stakes they gained through a 2001 government-led bailout.
SK Telecom fell 1.3 percent to 152,000 won as of 11:49 a.m. in Seoul, extending their loss this year to 12 percent. Hynix declined 0.7 percent to 21,450 won.
--With assistance from Seonjin Cha in Seoul. Editors: Anand Krishnamoorthy, Subramaniam Sharma.
To contact the reporter on this story: Saeromi Shin in Seoul at sshin15@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at anandk@bloomberg.net.
