SK Hynix plans to distribute a special dividend of approximately 16 trillion Korean Won from Kioxia's earnings

According to an exclusive report by the East Asia Daily on October 26, the memory chip company SK Hynix plans to return 80% of the proceeds from the sale of its stake in the Japanese NAND manufacturer Kioxia to shareholders as a special dividend. The report cites investment banks and financial industry sources estimating the related proceeds to be around 20 trillion Korean won, with the special dividend expected to be about 16 trillion Korean won. The company intends to announce this plan during the third-quarter earnings release on October 28. Currently, this is an industry expectation and not an officially confirmed announcement by the company.

Based on the current number of shares issued, the special dividend amounts to approximately 23,000 Korean won per share, which is 15 times the annual fixed dividend of 1,500 Korean won per share and 61 times the quarterly dividend of 375 Korean won. Whether the payment will be made in installments is still under consideration. Last year's total dividend was 2.1 trillion Korean won. The company stated during the second-quarter earnings call that it is exploring various additional ways to return value to shareholders and will share the details once determined within the year.

In 2018, SK Hynix participated in a consortium led by Bain Capital to acquire the NAND business spun off from Toshiba, which was renamed Kioxia in 2019. The total investment by the company was approximately 395 billion Japanese yen, of which the fund's contribution has been sold in phases by Bain and fully recovered. In the first quarter of this year, part of the disposal recovered 4.1178 trillion Korean won, and after further disposal in the second quarter, the estimated proceeds, excluding the principal, are around 20 trillion Korean won. Kioxia's stock price rose from about 10,000 Japanese yen at the end of last year to a historical high of 112,700 Japanese yen on June 22 this year.