Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo and his son offloaded part of their shares in the group's logistics unit, Hyundai Glovis Co., at an estimated 1.1 trillion won ($1 billion), industry sources said Friday.
  

According to the sources, the two sold 5.02 million shares in the affiliate, which account for a 13.39 percent stake, through a block deal. The price per share was 230,500 won, a 2.7 percent discount from the previous day's closing.
  

The sale price was about 50,000 won lower than what the Chung family offered in their botched first attempted sale last month.
  

In January, Chung and his only son, Eui-sun, vice chairman of Hyundai Motor Co., failed in their first try at the stake sale. Inside sources at the time said the market disagreed on the offered price and that there were other unspecified reasons.
  

The group has said that the stake sale is aimed at meeting toughened government regulations on intra-group transactions that will apply to conglomerate owners and their families owning 30 percent or more of other affiliates. The regulations will go into effect in mid-February.
  

The stake sale brought down the two Chung's shareholdings in Hyundai Glovis to 29.99 percent.
  

The widespread speculation is that the move is aimed at helping Eui-sun gain management power of the group by raising money needed for him to purchase shares of Hyundai Mobis Co., the group's de facto holding company, in which the junior Chung has no stakes.
  

The group, the world's fifth-largest automotive conglomerate that owns Hyundai Motor and Kia Motor Corp., dismissed such rumors, saying that it has nothing to do with corporate governance.
  

Shares of Hyundai Glovis surged 5.91 percent to close at 251,000 won on Friday, far outperforming the benchmark KOSPI's 0.14 percent gain. Analysts say that the share sale helped ease uncertainty lingering over the company and would defend it from government penalties for getting deals from Hyundai Motor Group.
  

Hyundai Mobis, however, plunged 4.34 percent to 242,500 won as some see the share sale not as a revamp of corporate governance but more about meeting intra-group regulations as Hyundai Motor Group claims. That lowered expectations that the junior Chung would increase his holdings in the company anytime soon. (Yonhap)