Hong Seok-hyun, Chairman of JoongAng Holdings, has sold his stake in BGF Retail.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART) today (June 23), Chairman Hong sold 370,878 shares of BGF Retail through open market transactions on June 18 and June 22–23.
As a result, Chairman Hong's stake decreased from 3.17% to 1.02%.
Previously, Chairman Hong also sold his entire stake (1,021,212 shares) in the holding company BGF over five separate transactions between June 11 and June 17.
The sell-off of Chairman Hong's shares is analyzed to be related to the liquidity crisis facing the JoongAng Group.
On June 12, JTBC, the general programming channel under JoongAng Group, declared a default after failing to repay 20.6 billion won in securitized borrowings upon maturity.
Two days later, on June 14, JoongAng Holdings, Contentree JoongAng, JoongAng P&I, and Megabox JoongAng consecutively filed for court receivership.
On June 15, JTBC also filed for court receivership.
(Photo: Courtesy of BGF Retail, Yonhap News)