Top conglomerates take up half of stock market cap

Listed units of South Korea's top 10 conglomerates account for slightly over half of the country's stock market capitalization, data showed Wednesday, pointing to their huge clout in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

According to the data by corporate tracker CEO Score, 181 listed subsidiaries of the 10 largest family-controlled business groups, known as chaebol here, had a combined market capitalization of 778.5 trillion won ($700 billion) as of end-July, or 51.2 percent of the value of all shares traded on the main bourse.

Despite the large portion, the number of the big 10 groups' listed units came to a mere 8.8 percent of all 2,064 companies traded on the country's main stock market.

A total of 416 members of chaebol families owned shares worth 70.1 trillion won, taking up 4.7 percent of the total market cap.

Leading conglomerate Samsung Group, which has the world's top smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co. under its wing, led the pack by a wide margin.

The value of Samsung's 15 listed companies came to 347.3 trillion won, accounting for 23.2 percent of the total market capitalization and 44.6 percent of the worth of the top 10 conglomerates. Samsung Electronics alone had a market value of 245.6 trillion won as of Tuesday.

Automaking giant Hyundai Motor Group, which has 15 listed units, came next with a market value of 100.8 trillion won, followed by LG Group with 77.3 trillion won.

The flagships of Hyundai Motor Group, the world's No. 5 automaker, are Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., while LG Group's key unit is home appliance and smartphone maker LG Electronics Inc. (Yonhap)