SK Group, Korea's second-largest conglomerate, has paused a ₩5.5 trillion ($3.7 billion) sale of SK Siltron — the world's third-largest silicon-wafer maker — just as the deal reached the signing stage, a reversal that signals how fast the AI-driven memory boom is repricing assets tied to the Korean chip supply chain.
What happened
Doosan Group, a Korean industrial conglomerate, had been selected in December 2025 as preferred bidder for a 70.6% stake in SK Siltron — SK Inc.'s 51% holding plus a 19.6% interest held through a total return swap — in a transaction that valued the company at roughly ₩5.5 trillion ($3.7 billion), per KED Global. The contract was expected to be signed around May 28, 2026, but the schedule was abruptly postponed, and SK Group is now reviewing whether to proceed at all, according to Businesskorea (June 3, 2026) and Asiae.
The trigger is the semiconductor super-cycle. As AI demand lifts the value of the chain running from wafers to SK hynix (000660.KS), Korea's largest memory-chip maker, SK's internal view shifted to treat SK Siltron — a producer of the essential silicon and silicon-carbide substrates that feed that chain — as a strategic asset rather than a divestiture candidate, Businesskorea reported. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won underscored the new posture at the Computex 2026 trade show in Taipei on June 2, saying the group plans to "double our wafer production capacity at full speed within the next five years," per Businesskorea.
Why the math changed
Six months ago, SK Siltron was a flagship listing in SK's portfolio "rebalancing" drive, when softer chip demand made a divestiture attractive, Asiae noted. Two complications had already slowed the deal. Seoul Economic Daily (May 12, 2026) reported that SK Siltron booked a ₩414.1 billion ($280 million) impairment on its silicon-carbide (SiC) business — a unit built on technology bought from DuPont for about ₩668.6 billion ($452 million) in 2020 that posted a ₩214.5 billion ($145 million) loss last year alone. The same report said roughly ₩1.2 trillion ($811 million) of the company's ₩2.7 trillion ($1.8 billion) total debt carries covenants requiring immediate repayment on a change of control, raising refinancing risk for Doosan.
Ownership structure adds a further obstacle: Chairman Chey personally holds a 29.4% stake in SK Siltron, which complicates any path to full Doosan control, per Businesskorea. SK Siltron operates its main wafer plant in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, and has secured a $544 million U.S. Department of Energy loan to expand SiC wafer manufacturing in Michigan, according to KED Global.
The flip side: capital still chasing the chip chain
While SK pulls an asset back in-house, foreign capital is moving the other way. Brookfield, the Canada-based alternative asset manager that runs about $1 trillion in assets, used a June 1 press briefing at Seoul's IFC (International Finance Center) to signal plans for expanded Korean investment, Chosun Biz reported. Park Jun-woo, Brookfield's Korea and Japan infrastructure head and Korea CEO, said Korea "always ranks in the top three" countries on the firm's global investment list and pointed to AI infrastructure, power and data centers.
Brookfield's Korea track record runs straight through the chip chain. After entering via the 2016 acquisition of the IFC complex, it bought the industrial-gas facilities at SK's M16 chip plant in 2022 and last year acquired SK Group's broader industrial- and specialty-gas business for about ₩1.4 trillion ($946 million) — assets that supply semiconductor gas to Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix, per Chosun Biz. Park said Brookfield's Korean assets under management now total roughly $11 billion to $12 billion (₩16–17 trillion), more than double the level of five years ago, and that the firm is in talks with major Korean groups on AI-infrastructure and energy projects, including a $100 billion AI-infrastructure program it is pursuing with Nvidia.
The open question
The near-term signal to watch is whether SK formally terminates the Doosan agreement, restructures it, or lets it expire — and how Doosan, which had recast its portfolio around chips, responds. A definitive disclosure or company statement on the deal's status would confirm whether SK's revaluation of SK Siltron is a permanent strategic reversal or a renegotiation tactic in a rising market.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures are drawn from cited sources; currency conversions use a rate of approximately ₩1,480 per USD unless a source provided its own conversion.
