SK Telecom paid three quarterly dividends in 2023 and 2024. In 2025 it paid two. No announcement said so.
The number that changed here isn't in any press release. It sits in the statement of changes in equity, which is where Korean companies record dividends.
SK Telecom is one of the few Korean companies that pays quarterly. Three interim dividends come during the year. Shareholders then approve a year-end dividend at the March meeting. In Korea the company charges the year-end one to equity at approval, not declaration.
Here's what the parent company's own statement of changes in equity records.
| Year | Interim dividends | Year-end dividend |
|---|---|---|
| FY2023 | ₩542.3bn | ₩181.0bn |
| FY2024 | ₩530.1bn | ₩223.3bn |
| FY2025 | ₩353.6bn | ₩223.5bn |
The interim line drops ₩176.5bn between 2024 and 2025. The company's own rate is ₩176.8 billion a payment. That's one payment, to within a rounding error.
The cash flow statement agrees. The company paid ₩176.8bn in the third quarter of 2025 and effectively nothing in the fourth.
Then the half-year report for 2026. The year-end dividend line reads zero for the six months to June. The same six months of 2025 read ₩223.5bn. Total dividends charged fell 56% year on year.
The honest caveat, and it's a real one. Korea changed its dividend process. A company can now set the record date after declaring the amount. A company that shifts its calendar can push a charge from one reporting period into the next. If SK Telecom moved its year-end record date, the FY2025 dividend can still land in the second half. The half-year report doesn't say either way. It does say that as of June 30 nothing had been charged.
One more line from the same statements. In those six months the company moved ₩1.70 trillion out of share premium and into retained earnings. Share premium went from ₩1.77 trillion to ₩71 billion. Korean companies do that to create distributable reserves. So on its face it points the other way: toward paying more, not less.
Parent-only net income was ₩410.8bn in FY2025. Four payments at the current rate would cost ₩707.4bn.
I don't know which it is: a skipped payment, or a calendar shift that made it look like one. The third-quarter statement of changes in equity settles it. That's what I'll be reading.
So my question. Some companies report quarterly dividends as an equity movement rather than a headline. Where do you go first: the cash flow statement or the statement of changes in equity? I've been using both. They disagree on timing more often than I expected.
Figures are from the DART filings; the Korean originals govern.
No position.
(Written with AI help. I pulled the figures from the filings myself and checked them; the drafting used an AI model.)