Minister Shin Clarifies "'Stock Texts' Are Pre-Meeting Messages"

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik explained the controversy over text messages related to stock trading by stating that the messages were exchanged "before the National Assembly Budget and Accounts Committee plenary session."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 8th, Minister Shin said, "The lease contract for the house in Oksu-dong ends this week, and the incident occurred during the process of selling all the stocks I held to raise funds for moving." He added, "The messages were exchanged around 9:40 a.m., before the plenary session started, and I was caught by media cameras while checking the messages before the session."

On the afternoon of the 7th, Minister Shin was photographed by media cameras responding to a KakaoTalk message during the Budget and Accounts Committee plenary session. The photo of Minister Shin’s text message exposed to the media showed a received message stating, "Only Solus sold 1,000 shares at 24,250 won, Madam 767 shares at 24,250 won," followed by his reply, "Yes. Please send the total amount after the market closes like yesterday."

The "Solus" mentioned in Minister Shin’s message is presumed to be "Solus Advanced Materials," a company listed on the KOSPI. It is one of the top three domestic copper foil manufacturers and produces materials for secondary batteries. Minister Shin disclosed his stock holdings during the confirmation hearing process in September while he was a nominee. According to the confirmation hearing request submitted to the National Assembly on September 16, the nominee held securities worth 293 million won, including Solus Advanced Materials, Tesla, and Apple, as well as deposits of 97 million won.

Solus Advanced Materials’ closing price was 22,650 won on the 3rd, just before the short-selling ban was implemented. Following the government and ruling party’s policy to temporarily ban short selling starting on the 6th, the closing price rose to 24,150 won before falling to 23,500 won on the day in question. The estimated amount of stocks sold by Minister Shin and his spouse on that day is about 42 million won.