Top business groups take 60% of stock market cap

Listed companies belonging to South Korea’s top 10 conglomerates account for nearly 60 percent of the local stock market’s total capitalization, a report showed Monday.

The Korea Exchange report showed the aggregate market capitalization of the affiliates stood at 737.17 trillion won ($648.91 billion) as of end-April, up 14.72 percent from the end of 2011. The figure translates into 59.21 percent of the stock market capitalization, up 3.21 percentage points from the end of last year.

Samsung Group, the country’s largest family-run business or chaebol, made up 25.29 percent of the stock market. The group controls Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest mobile phone and memory chip manufacturer.

Hyundai Motor Group, the world’s fifth largest carmaker, and No. 1 transportation conglomerate Hanjin Group came in second and third place, respectively, with 17.51 percent and 10.42 percent of stock value.

Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, which owns the single largest shipyard in the world, accounted for 9.86 with SK and GS groups controlling 9.58 and 3.06 percent of the country’s listed shares.

The KRX, however, said the value of shares belonging to Hanhwa, Lotte, LG groups and leading steelmaker POSCO fell in the last four months. 

(Yonhap News)