South Korean billionaire Chey Tae-won completes $703 million share sale for divorce

South Korean billionaire Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, has completed the sale of 944 billion won ($703 million) of shares in the group's holding company, raising the exact sum a Seoul court ordered him to pay his former wife in the country's largest divorce case.

SK Inc. said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that Chey disposed of 1,653,924 shares in two off-market transactions that took effect on Nov. 2. His personal stake fell to 15.49% from 17.76%, and the combined holding of Chey, his relatives and affiliates dropped to 22.93% from 25.21%. He remains the company's largest shareholder.

The bigger of the two deals was a sale of 972,493 shares at 559,387 won apiece, or about 544 billion won ($405 million), to DFO Public Investments L.P., a fund linked to the family office of American billionaire Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies Inc. The remaining 681,431 shares went to Korea Investment & Securities Co., a Seoul brokerage, at 587,000 won each, for about 400 billion won ($298 million), under a three-year price return swap.

Exposed to the share price

The swap gives Chey cash now, but the final amount he keeps depends on how SK Inc. shares perform. At the end of the three years the deal is settled against the share price, so Chey collects any gain above the 587,000 won reference price and covers any loss below it. The brokerage holds the shares and their voting and dividend rights in the meantime.

SK Inc. shares have since fallen below both deal prices. The stock dropped 6.85% on Thursday to close at 482,500 won ($359). At that price, the 1.65 million shares Chey sold would be worth about 798 billion won ($594 million), or roughly 146 billion won ($109 million) less than the agreed transaction value.

The shares in the swap alone were worth about 71 billion won ($53 million) less than the reference price at Thursday's close. That gap would only become a cost to Chey if it still stands when the swap is settled. His remaining 11.32 million shares were worth about 5.46 trillion won ($4.1 billion).

In a lecture to about 450 students at Seoul National University, Chey spoke about the boom in artificial-intelligence spending that has lifted SK Group's chip earnings. "Too much money has already been pumped into the market," he said. "These roller-coaster market conditions are bound to continue." He also defended the scale of spending. "The whole world is in this game," he said. "We cannot catch up unless we make bets on this scale."

A case still before the top court

The 944 billion won figure comes from a July 24 retrial ruling by the Seoul High Court, which ordered Chey to pay that amount in cash to Roh Soh-yeong, director of Seoul's Art Center Nabi and the daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo. The ruling replaced a 1.38 trillion won property award that the Supreme Court threw out in October 2025.

The dispute is not over. Chey has appealed again to the Supreme Court, accepting 700 billion won ($521 million) of the award and contesting the remaining 244 billion won ($182 million). He argues that Roh's one-third share of the marital assets is too high and that his SK shares should not be valued using later price gains. Roh did not file a counter-appeal.

Chey, 65, has led SK Group, South Korea's second-largest conglomerate, since his father, Chey Jong-hyon, died in 1998. The group controls SK Hynix Inc., the biggest maker of the high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI systems, as well as SK Telecom Co. and SK Innovation Co. He filed for divorce in 2017.

Figures were converted at 1,343 won to the dollar.