Kospi firms' dividends dip 14 percent in 2021

Dividend payouts by firms listed on Korea's main stock market sank more than 14 percent in 2021 despite a solid rise in their share prices, data showed Tuesday.

The combined amount of dividends by top-cap Samsung Electronics and 567 companies listed on the main bourse came to 28.4 trillion won ($23 billion) last year, down 14.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Securities Depository.

The decline came as the benchmark Kospi expanded 3.6 percent in 2021 from the previous year.

A total of 587 businesses traded on the minor tech-heavy Kosdaq paid out a combined 2.2 trillion won in dividends last year, up 24.8 percent from a year earlier. The Kosdaq index climbed 6.8 percent on-year in 2021.

Total dividends paid out by the 1,155 companies listed on both bourses thus fell 12.1 percent on-year to 30.6 trillion won last year. Yet the number of dividend-paying firms rose by 62.

Tech giant Samsung Electronics was the top dividend-paying Kospi firm with some 2.5 trillion won, with fabless chipmaker LX Semicon paying the largest dividend of 87.8 billion won among Kosdaq companies.

Domestic companies received the largest amount in dividends with 11.7 trillion won, or 38.3 percent of the total, followed by foreign investors with 9.9 trillion won. The remainder was paid out to local retail investors.

The share of offshore investors' dividend receipts decreased to 32.5 percent in 2021 from 40.6 percent from the prior year, according to the data.

Yonhap