[Edaily Reporter Park Jung-Soo ] On the 18th, Hana Securities maintained its “Buy” rating on SK(034730), citing expectations that the value of its equity stakes in SK hynix(000660)and SK Innovation(096770)will rise due to improved earnings at those subsidiaries, and raised its target price by 37.5% from 560,000 won to 770,000 won. The closing price on the 14th was 585,000 won.
Choi Jeong-wook, an analyst at Hana Securities, explained, “The reason for the target price increase is to reflect the rise in equity value resulting from the rising stock prices of major subsidiaries, and in the case of SK hynix and SK Innovation, to reflect the potential for future increases in equity value due to continued earnings improvement.”
SK’s second-quarter consolidated revenue reached 42.1 trillion won, a 39.9% increase year-over-year, while operating profit surged 2,205% to 4.8 trillion won. SKSQUARE, buoyed by SK hynix’s record-breaking performance, posted a second-quarter operating profit of 19.2 trillion won—a 1,274% increase year-over-year—while SK Innovation also drove the earnings improvement by returning to profitability with an operating profit of 3.5 trillion won.
SKTelecom also saw its operating profit rise 67.6% year-over-year to 600 billion won, driven by the base effect from costs related to last year’s cyberattack and growth in its artificial intelligence (AI) data center business.
However, while the unlisted subsidiary SK Eco Plant continued its growth trend with revenue of 5.2 trillion won, its operating profit of 534 billion won fell short of expectations. This was due to the recognition of losses exceeding 200 billion won in the solutions division related to unsold domestic projects. Analyst Choi noted, “Given the possibility of recognizing additional losses in the second half of the year, it is expected to be somewhat difficult for the cumulative annual operating profit this year to significantly exceed 2 trillion won.”
He also projected that concerns over an overhang resulting from the sale of SK Siltron shares would subside considerably. SK has decided to sell 47.32 million shares of SK Siltron it holds to DOOSAN for 2.3 trillion won. Based on this, the value of Chey Tae-won’s personal 29.4% stake in SK Siltron is estimated at approximately 950 billion won. This is similar to the 944 billion won in property division payments determined in the retrial.
Analyst Choi stated, “If this stake is sold, it is theoretically expected that a significant portion of the property division payment could be secured without disposing of SK shares,” adding, “While uncertainty remains regarding the final outcome as the property division issue will be reviewed again by the Supreme Court, concerns about an ‘overhang’ stemming from the potential sale of SK shares are likely to be significantly alleviated.”
He also viewed the reduction in the tax burden resulting from the cancellation of treasury stock positively. SK plans to cancel all 14.69 million shares of its treasury stock—excluding 3.29 million shares reserved for employee compensation—which accounts for 20.1% of its issued shares. Although a corporate tax burden of approximately 400 billion won had initially been anticipated, analysts projected that the immediate tax burden would be alleviated as tax deferral is permitted under this year’s tax reform plan. However, they added that the stock buyback, scheduled for January 2027, could be delayed depending on the timing of the tax reform plan’s implementation.