Samsung SDS is accelerating its efforts to restructure its business portfolios to enhance corporate values as the system integration unit of Samsung Business Group, which plays a pivotal role in corporate governance of Samsung Business Group along with Samsung C&T. Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jay-yong is the third largest shareholder of Samsung SDS following Samsung Electronics and Samsung C&T.
Samsung SDS held a board of directors’ meeting on Nov. 7 and approved the transferring of the in-house educational content business to Credu, an e-Learning unit of Samsung SDS. Samsung SDS is the largest shareholder with a 47.2 percent stake in Credu, which was established in 2000 and is now a listed company of KOSDAQ. The business is to be handed over at a price of 75.3 billion won on Nov. 11.
The board of directors’ meeting of Samsung SDS also approved a plan to acquire a 52.2 percent stake in SECUI, an information security subsidiary of S-1, for 97 billion won. The acquisition will be made as an off-board transaction. The acquisition will bring to 56.5 percent in Samsung SDS’s stake in SECUI, plus its conventional interest of 4.3 percent. SECUI, established in 2000, is a network security company specializing in such cyber security arenas as next-generation firewalls and intruder prevention systems. The company posted some 100 billion won in annual sales last year. Samsung C&T also takes an 8.7 stake in SECUI.
Samsung SDS now secures a platform to nurture new growth engines through its two subsidiaries — Credu and SECUI.
Last month, Samsung SDE decided to merge its two subsidiaries — Miracom Inc., specializing in manufacturing production management software and Opentide Korea, specializing in corporate resources management solutions. The consolidation will take effect on Dec. 1.
The latest restructuring moves are in line with Samsung SDI’s decision to acquire Samsung Fine Chemicals’s stake in Samsung in return for handing over Samsung SDI’s battery material business and stake in STM to Samsung Fine Chemicals. They may be construed as Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jay-yong’s strategies to integrate same businesses, being sprayed into several Samsung subsidiaries into one unit of the group to have synergic effects and improve efficiency, group officials and industry analysts said.
Attracting the most public attention among group subsidiaries is Samsung C&T in which Samsung Vice Chairman Lee takes the biggest stake at 16.5 percent. The conventional presumption was that Samsung Vice Chairman Lee might make the most of his stake in Samsung SDS to pay for his inheritance taxes. Words have begun to surface that Samsung SDS may be a stepping stone to stabilize the business group’s corporate governance along with Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI. Behind the restructuring of Samsung SDS is the fact that Samsung Vice Chairman Lee may need to enhance corporate values of Samsung SDS as much as those of Samsung C&T to ramp up his sway over the business Group.
In a meeting with reporters last April, Samsung SDS President Jun Dong-soo announced an ambitious plan to achieve a goal of chalking up 20 trillion won in sales in 2020, a 2.5 fold jump in six years from 7.9 trillion won in 2014 sales.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has capped the group’s corporate governance by consolidating SK C&C in which Chairman Chey has the biggest stake and SK Holdings, the holding company of the group, business sources familiar to the matter said. Samsung SDS is forecast to make more aggressive moves to expand business portfolios to play more roles in Samsung Vice Chairman Lee’s succession of the group from his father Lee Kun-hee.
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