Pension service might sue Samsung Securities

The National Pension Service, the second-largest shareholder in Samsung Securities, said Friday it is considering suing the brokerage over the fat-finger trading error that caused its stock prices to plummet.

The country’s largest institutional investor, with over 600 trillion won ($560.5 billion) under management, gave a member of the National Assembly a document that said it is reviewing its losses from the erroneous trading scandal.

The pension service refused to name the lawmaker.

“An equity management division is assessing the size of the damages from the Samsung Securities’ trading error, and if needed, a compliance unit could raise a damage suit,” the document read.

While the size of the pension fund’s losses remains unknown, market players predict that it could be heavily affected by the scandal as it holds 9.9 percent of Samsung Securities’ shares.

Samsung Securities mistakenly delivered 112.6 trillion won worth of nonexistent shares to employees as part of their stock dividend plan on April 6 because of an input error.

The share price of Samsung Securities plummeted 3.64 percent on the day of the error, as institutional investors offloaded 31.2 billion won worth of the brokerage’s shares.

A source at the National Pension Service said that it did not directly sell its shares, but some asset managers entrusted by the fund sold shares.

“We didn’t make direct transactions that day with our holdings of Samsung Securities,” the source said, “but the fund managers that handle our holdings in Samsung Securities appeared to sell.”

Samsung Securities didn’t include institutional investors in its compensation plan.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]