[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyung-wook ] Hoban Group has surpassed Walter Cho, Chairman of HANJIN Logistics Corporation, to become the largest shareholder of HANJINKAL, the holding company of HANJIN Logistics Corporation.

HANJINKAL announced on the 4th that its largest shareholder had changed from Chairman Cho and his affiliates to Hoban Construction and its affiliates.

Ho-ban holds 13,814,053 common shares of HANJINKAL (20.69%), leading Chairman Cho’s group—which holds 13,738,919 shares (20.58%)—by 0.11 percentage points. Even when calculated based on the total number of issued shares, including preferred stock, Hoban held a 20.53% stake, leading Chairman Cho’s side (20.44%).

Ho-Ban Industry, an affiliate of the Ho-Ban Group, led the turnaround by increasing its holdings from 112,145 shares—as disclosed on July 10—to 471,524 shares, an increase of 359,379 shares. The holdings of Hoban Construction (7,676,827 shares), Hoban Hotel & Resort (5,566,702 shares), and Hoban Co., Ltd. (99,000 shares) remained unchanged.

Ho-ban reported the corporate merger to the Fair Trade Commission last month, noting that it was possible the company had surpassed Chairman Cho’s stake through the additional share acquisition.

However, it is highly likely that the largest shareholder will change again within the next one to two months. On the 2nd, Chairman Cho announced a contract to purchase 325,000 common shares of HANJINKAL at 114,000 won per share, for a total of 37.05 billion won. The scheduled transaction period is from December 3 to January 1 of next year. If Chairman Cho purchases 325,000 shares from shareholders outside his group of related parties, his group’s stake in common stock will rise to 21.07%, once again surpassing Hoban’s 20.69% stake by 249,866 shares.

Although the largest shareholder has changed, this does not immediately mean a change in management control. This is because, in addition to its own holdings, Chairman Cho’s side has friendly shareholders, including Delta Air Lines (14.90%), with which it has a collaborative relationship, and the Korea Development Bank (10.58%), which supported KoreanAirLines’s acquisition of Asiana Airlines.