Billionaire and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won prepares to leave after speaking at the Nikkei Asia Future Forum on Thursday, May 23, 2024 in Tokyo, Japan.
Kiyoshi Ohta | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shares of SK Inc., one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, surged 16% on Thursday after a court reportedly ordered the company’s chairman to pay his wife $1 billion in divorce proceedings.
A Seoul court ordered Choi Tae-won to pay 1.38 trillion won to his estranged wife Noh So-young.
Prior local reports suggested Roh was seeking around 2 trillion won as part of a settlement and some of Chey’s shares in SK Inc. The final settlement is lower, perhaps explaining the jump in SK Inc. shares, which eventually closed more than 9% higher in Seoul.
SK Inc. was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
SK Inc. is one of South Korea’s largest technology groups and the holding company of SK Hynix, one of the world’s largest storage chip companies, and the mobile network SK Telecom.
The saga began in 2015 when Chey admitted that she had a child out of wedlock. In 2017, he filed for divorce from Roh Moo-hyun.
In the protracted legal battle, Roh’s lawyers reportedly argued that her late father, former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, gave Choi money to develop SK Inc.’s business in the 1990s. Chey’s legal team says no such funds exist.