SK Group's divorce case reheard as control of SK Hynix takes center stage

ME AI news: The divorce asset division case between SK Group chairman Choi Tae-won and his ex-wife Roh Soo-young has become even more sensitive amid the AI chip boom. SK Hynix, thanks to its pivotal role in NVIDIA’s supply chain with HBM, has emerged as one of South Korea’s most sought-after assets in the global AI capital expenditure cycle. What Korean media dubbed the “divorce of the century” was originally a prolonged family dispute among a powerful conglomerate. But the surge in stock prices and market valuation has significantly expanded the market’s perception of Choi’s personal wealth and SK’s controlling stake, turning this private matter into a high-profile corporate control issue attracting Wall Street’s attention. SK Hynix, the core asset under Choi Tae-won’s control, is one of NVIDIA’s most critical suppliers of high-bandwidth memory. As demand for HBM exploded, SK Hynix’s stock price and valuation soared, pushing Choi’s personal fortune to approximately $5 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that his ex-wife, Roh Soo-young, is seeking half of that amount. The central dispute revolves around whether Choi’s shares in SK Inc. should be classified as marital property and at what valuation point they should be assessed. South Korea’s Supreme Court previously upheld the divorce and a 2 billion KRW compensation for emotional distress but overturned the Seoul High Court’s ruling on a 1.38 trillion KRW asset division, sending the property settlement portion back for reconsideration. The Seoul High Court will issue a new ruling on July 24. BlockBeats previously analyzed the Choi family’s situation in its article “The Heirs of SK Hynix’s Trillion-Dollar Empire.” Their marriage was once called South Korea’s “wedding of the century.” Choi married Roh Soo-young in 1988; she is the daughter of former South Korean president Roh Tae-woo, and their union was seen as a symbol of elite political-business alliances. In 2015, Choi publicly acknowledged an extramarital affair and fathered a son with another woman, triggering a protracted legal battle. Of Choi and Roh’s three children: their eldest daughter, Choi Yoon-jung, works in SK Bioscience and SK Inc.’s Growth Support Division; their second daughter, Choi Min-jung, previously handled international trade and policy at SK Hynix before shifting to AI-driven healthcare entrepreneurship; and their eldest son, Choi In-geun, moved from SK E&S to McKinsey. All three are connected to the group’s future, yet none have been clearly identified by the market as a traditional “crown prince.” For markets, SK Hynix remains one of Asia’s most essential assets in the AI memory chain. For the SK family, the greater Hynix’s importance, the harder it becomes to treat inheritance and divorce litigation as purely private matters. The AI-driven surge in Hynix’s valuation has also raised the external costs of every internal family arrangement. How the court handles asset division, how Choi secures control, and how the third generation establishes operational legitimacy will all become focal points for investors. (Source: BlockBeats)