Shareholders increase, even as share prices fall

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Shareholders increase, even as share prices fall

Shareholders enter the 54th Samsung Electronics Annual Meeting of Shareholders hosted in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on March 15. [YONHAP]

Shareholders enter the 54th Samsung Electronics Annual Meeting of Shareholders hosted in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on March 15. [YONHAP]

 
Despite the plunge in the stock market due to economic slowdown, the number of shareholders increased last year.
 
For Samsung Electronics in particular, the share price fell to two-thirds of its original price, but the shareholder number increased by double digits. 
 
The number shareholders of Samsung Electronics increased last year nearly 14 percent on year to surpass 6.38 million, according to data from Korea Securities Depositary. The figure constitutes 12 percent of Korea's entire population. 
 
Samsung Electronics had the greatest number of shareholders for a listed company.
 
The case is interesting for Samsung, as the shares fell some 30 percent last year to close at 55,300 won, but the number of shareholders jumped 13.6 percent on year from 2021’s 5.61 million.
 
Despite a dramatic plunge in IT stocks last year, Kakao has the second-greatest number of shareholders for a listed company with 2.06 million, up from 2021’s 1.92 million, followed by Hyundai Motors with 1.21 million, up from 2021’s 1.18 million.
 
In the Kosdaq market, Kakao Games had the greatest number of shareholders with 293,904, followed by Celltrion Healthcare with 277,691 and EcoPro BM with 225,308.
 
There were 33 companies with more than half their stake owned by foreign shareholders, down by one from the previous year.
  
On the Kospi, Tongyang Life Insurance had the highest percentage of foreign shareholders with 82 percent, followed by S-Oil’s 77.3 percent and LocknLock’s 77.1 percent.
 
Among Korean shareholders, individual shareholders in their 40s accounted for the highest percentage of the shareholder population with 22.9 percent, or 3.27 million. Shareholders in their 50s held the highest number of shares with 19.2 billion shares, 34.2 percent of the total.
 
By gender, 7.43 million shareholders were men, or 52.2 percent, while 6.81 million were women, or 47.8 percent. However, male shareholders owned twice as much then female ones, possessing 71.1 percent of total shares, or 39.9 billion shares.
 
By province, Gyeonggi residents accounted for 26.3 percent of the total shareholder population, or 3.79 million people, followed by Seoul’s 3.55 million, or 24.6 percent, and Busan’s 880,000, or 6.1 percent.
 
Taking age, gender and place of residence into consideration, men in their 40s residing in Suwon, Gyeonggi accounted for the most shareholders with 45,400. Women in their 40s residing in Yongin, Gyeonggi followed with 43,800, and 40-something-women living in Suwon followed next by 43,800.
 
Fifty-something men living in Gangnam District, southern Seoul had the highest number of shares with 11.8 billion, followed by 60-something men living in the same area with 940 million shares, then 50-something men in Seongnam, Gyeonggi with 770 million shares.  
 
The total population of shareholders with stocks increased 4.1 percent on year to record 14.41 million for 2022, subtracting the number of shareholders with multiple stocks of 2,509 listed companies.

 
The average number of stocks per person fell 1.8 percent on year to 5.85, and the average number of shares per person declined 0.8 percent to 7,688 shares.
 
About 98 percent of shareholders, or 14.24 million, were individual domestic shareholders, followed by company shareholders with 43,000 or 0.3 percent, and foreigners with 33,000 or 0.2 percent.
 
Individual shareholders owned 50.7 percent of shares, or 56.1 billion shares, followed by companies with 36.7 percent, or 40.7 billion shares, and foreigners with 12 percent or 13.3 billion shares.
 
For Kospi-listed companies, companies owned 27.1 billion shares, or 44.2 percent, and individual shareholders owned 32.2 billion shares, or 67.4 percent.

BY LEE JI-YOUNG [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]
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