[Featured Stock] LG Shares Respond to Shareholder Return Policy... Up 7% Intraday

[Asia Economy Reporter Minji Lee] LG is showing an upward trend during trading hours after announcing its shareholder return policy.

At 10:47 AM on the 30th, LG was trading at 80,100 KRW, up 7.23% from the previous trading day, with the intraday stock price soaring to 81,100 KRW. Currently, foreign securities firms such as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are prominently listed among the buyers. At this time, foreign investors have purchased about 89,000 shares, and institutions have bought about 12,000 shares.

The mid- to long-term shareholder value enhancement plan announced on the 27th proved effective for the stock price. The company plans to invest a large amount of funds in repurchasing its own shares, aiming to acquire treasury stock worth 500 billion KRW by the end of 2024. LG’s current treasury stock holdings amount to 49,828 shares, representing only 0.03% of its equity. The securities industry expects the company to buy about 6.2 million shares, which corresponds to 4% of the floating shares.

Additionally, LG introduced a new dividend policy to return more than 50% of net income based on separate financial statements to shareholders. Kwonsoon Choi, a researcher at SK Securities, explained, “Last year, the total dividend amount was 448.9 billion KRW, dividend income was 518.3 billion KRW, and net income based on separate financial statements was 1.234 trillion KRW. Simply paying 50% of separate net income as dividends would result in a 37.5% increase in dividend payments.”