Han Sung-sook, South Korea’s nominee for Minister of SMEs and Startups and former Naver CEO, has decided to exercise 60,000 stock options that could earn her about 4 billion won ($2.93 million), industry sources said Thursday.
Han recently filed documents with Naver to exercise the stock options she received, 20,000 in 2019, and 40,000 in 2020. These 60,000 options, at their exercise prices, are worth about 10 billion won and will convert to shares on July 10.
Once confirmed as minister, she plans to sell the entire 60,000 shares, expected to be worth about 15.1 billion won based on current market prices, leaving around 4 billion won in net profit after taxes and costs.
She also holds 8,934 Naver shares personally and intends to sell them as required by public official ethics rules. This will bring her total planned liquidation to 68,934 shares, valued at roughly 17.4 billion won.
Under the Public Service Ethics Act, high-ranking officials must sell or place in a blind trust any stock holdings exceeding 30 million won within two months of taking office to avoid conflicts of interest.
Han will not exercise 40,000 options granted in 2021, as their strike price of 384,500 won is far above Naver’s current share price of 253,000 won.
A long-time tech industry veteran, Han joined Naver’s predecessor NHN in 2007 and went on to serve as director of the search quality center and head of the service division before becoming the CEO of Naver from 2017 to 2022.
She was nominated by the Lee Jae Myung administration as its first SMEs and Startups minister in June. She reportedly resigned from her advisory post at Naver after the nomination.
herim@heraldcorp.com
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