SK Telecom, Korea’s biggest telecom company, is most likely to merge two of its subsidiaries ― SK Planet and SK Marketing & Company ― as a means to beef up its mobile business, industry sources said.

The telecom giant will move forward with the merger and acquisition plan after it acquires SK Innovation’s 50 percent stake in SK M&C for a 100 percent controlling equity.

SK Telecom will likely make SK Planet the surviving entity through a statutory merger with SK M&C, which will dissolve after the M&A process by early next year.

This comes as SK Telecom seeks to reorganize the two subsidiaries, which had overlapping mobile businesses such as a mobile global positioning satellite system and gift coupons, as well as to bolster their mobile business. Also, this is in line with efforts to downsize and streamline SK Group’s subsidiaries for efficiency.

SK Planet is a wholly-owned mobile platform operating subsidiary of SK Telecom, and SK M&C is a 50/50 marketing joint venture firm between SK Telecom and SK Innovation, the energy flagship of SK Group.

An SK Telecom spokesperson mentioned that the group has been pushing to reduce the number of its subsidiaries through M&A. However, he could not verify the possible merger between SK Planet and SK M&C within press time.

By Park Hyong-ki and Cho Ji-hyun
(hkp@heraldcorp.com)(sharon@heraldcorp.com">hkp@heraldcorp.com)(sharon@heraldcorp.com)