S-1 plans to acquire 450 billion won worth of its own shares through a tender offer and cancel all of them to enhance shareholder value.

S-1 said on Oct. 15 that it filed a tender offer statement with the Financial Services Commission to purchase up to 4,545,454 common shares at 99,000 won each. The shares represent 11.96% of its total issued shares. The offer price is 13.79% higher than the Oct. 13 closing price of 87,000 won, the day before the board resolution.

S-1 also plans to cancel all 4,188,939 treasury shares it already holds, representing 11.02% of issued shares. Including the newly acquired shares, the cancellation will reduce its total issued shares from 37,999,178 to 29,264,785.

The tender offer will run for 20 days from Oct. 15 through Nov. 3. If the number of shares tendered exceeds the planned purchase volume, S-1 will buy shares on a pro rata basis. Payment will be made in cash, with Shinhan Securities handling the transaction.

The planned purchase represents about 32.5% of S-1’s treasury share acquisition limit of 1.3851 trillion won. As of the end of June, the company held 888.8 billion won in cash and short-term financial assets and had no borrowings.

S-1 said acquiring such a large volume of shares through open-market purchases would be difficult. The planned purchase exceeds the 4,015,189 shares traded over the past three months and is equivalent to 63 to 70 times the average daily trading volume.

S-1 announced a shareholder value enhancement plan on Oct. 14, pledging to increase its cumulative shareholder return ratio from 53% over the previous three years to 134% over the next three years.