Shareholders force cancellation of $2.5bn Samsung merger

Under Korean rules, shareholders opposed to deals including mergers can request that a company buy back their shares. SHI and Samsung Engineering agreed that the deal would be called off if buybacks exceeded KRW950bn and KRW410bn respectively.

SHI had requests to buy back KRW923.5bn of stock from its stakeholders opposing the deal, and Samsung Engineering had KRW706.3bn of stock returned.

Announced in September, two of the limbs of the Samsung empire were due to be merged by 1 December 2014 with the intention of boosting the merged entity's offshore capabilities.

Shareholders questioned the synergies between the two companies, Samsung Engineering has interests in power, petrochemical, refineries and non-hydrocarbon industries where SHI's main interests are in shipbuilding, offshore and heavy electric machinery.