By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Dutch electronics giant Philips has sold a 13 percent stake in LG.Philips LCD (LPL), a joint venture LCD maker, for 2 trillion won in a block trade, the company said Thursday.
The deal reduced Philips’s holdings in LPL to 19.9 percent.
Despite speculation on the company unloading more shares, it is highly unlikely that Philips will sell any more of its stake before the end of the year.
``I bet the biggest European consumer electronics manufacturer will not sell its stake further in the year as Philips wants to maintain a strategic partnership with us for the stable procurement of flat-screen panels for its goods,’’ Lee Bang-soo, the LPL vice president, said in a telephone interview with The Korea Times.
``I can confirm Citi Group and Credit Suisse Group were the joint book runners of the deal,’’ Lee added.
Its spokesperson Park Sang-bae told the newspaper 80 percent of the shares were bought by foreign investors, while the remaining 20 percent were handed over to local investors.
The sale price was set at 43,425 won, representing a 3.5 percent fall compared to LPL’s closing price on Wednesday.
``I am not surprised at the relatively lower sale price given LPL’s upbeat quarterly results and brighter future in the industry in the run-up to next year’s Beijing Olympics,’’ said a local fund manager.
In July, Philips expressed intentions to reduce its stake in LPL from 32.9 percent to below 20 percent in a bid to focus on other profitable businesses.
Philips spokesperson Arent Jan Hesselink said the Dutch company did not rule out the possibility that some of the remaining shares would be sold to strategic investors.
LPL, the world's second-largest liquid crystal display manufacturer, said Tuesday it turned a profit in the third quarter of this year on effective cost-cutting efforts and strong panel prices.
Net profit reached 524 billion won ($570.4 million) during the three months ending Sept. 30, a turnaround from a loss of 595 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Sales jumped 42.6 percent to a quarterly high of 3.95 trillion won and operating profit reached 693 billion won, compared with a 382 billion won loss a year earlier.
LPL CEO Kwon Young-soo has said his company will invest an additional 2.5 trillion won in constructing an eighth-generation facility for LCD panels to meet growing global demand, adding that the company will begin producing 83,000 units of 47- and 52-inch panels a month from the first half of 2009.