On 14 October 2026, Reuters, citing a regulatory filing, reported that the unnamed “strategic investor” buying the biggest block of SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won’s shares is DFO Public Investments, L.P., a Delaware fund affiliated with DFO Management, which Reuters calls “the family investment office of Michael Dell.” The fund is buying 972,493 shares of SK Inc., the group’s holding company, for ₩544 billion, or about $406 million. The buyer is the Dell family’s fund, not Dell Technologies.
Why it matters: a foreign family office is supplying cash a Korean chairman needs to pay a court award, while he keeps control. It also raises the question asked of any “friendly” buyer: investor or quiet ally? The Korea Corporate Governance Forum has asked it in public. Nothing in the reports we read shows that any voting agreement exists.
Why Chey Tae-won is selling shares
We covered the sale in our post on Chey’s share sale. A Seoul court ordered Chey to pay his former wife, Roh Soh-yeong, ₩944 billion in a property division. On 2 October, SK Inc. disclosed that he would sell 1,653,924 shares: 681,431 to Korea Investment & Securities for ₩400 billion under a three-year price return swap, and 972,493 at ₩559,387 each to a “strategic investor.” SK said the buyer had weighed its “medium- to long-term growth prospects.” Chey will keep about 15.5% of SK Inc. directly, 22.9% with related parties, and remain the largest shareholder.
Who the buyer is: Michael Dell’s DFO
DFO Management manages the money of Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and his family. According to its website, it was set up in 1998 as MSD Capital and restructured as DFO at the end of 2022. Reuters puts the stake at 1.34% of SK Inc.
Dell Technologies, a separate listed company, is a major AI server supplier with business ties to SK Hynix, SK’s memory chip maker, Reuters notes. That link is between two companies, not between the buyer and SK.
Why a family office buys such a stake
DFO has not given reasons, so these are general:
- Patient money. A family office answers to one family and has no fund deadline, so it can hold a listed stake for years.
- One share, a whole group. A holding company stake gives exposure to everything beneath it, including SK Hynix.
- Size at once. A negotiated block avoids weeks of buying that push the price up. Here it was priced below the ₩587,000 reference price in the swap.
- A seller with a deadline. A seller who needs cash values a buyer who is quick, discreet and not hostile.
What “strategic” and “friendly” mean
A strategic investor usually has a business reason to own the shares, as a partner or customer might; a financial investor is there for the return. The label stands out because DFO is an investment office, not an operating business. The Forum said it hinted that the parties’ interests could be aligned, Reuters reported.
A friendly investor is an outsider expected to back the controlling family in votes. That is legal; the line is crossed when an expectation becomes an agreement.
How the joint-holder rule works
Korea’s Capital Markets Act has a “5% rule”. Once a shareholder and its “specially related persons” together own 5% or more of a listed company, they must publicly report the holding and its purpose, The Herald Business explains. Related persons include joint holders: anyone who has agreed with the shareholder to buy, sell or vote the shares together.
The agreement need not be on paper. The Forum cites a Financial Services Commission interpretation that a spoken agreement is enough. In September, Korea’s Supreme Court said such an agreement can be implied but needs a real meeting of minds; a proxy for a single meeting is not enough on its own, according to a Bae, Kim & Lee legal update and Financial News. Under Article 150 of the Act, unreported shares above the 5% line cannot be voted for a period, and the Financial Services Commission can order them sold within six months.
At 1.3%, the fund alone is far below 5%, but Chey’s side is far above it, and a joint holder’s shares would be added to his. The Forum’s point, as Reuters put it: if Chey and the buyers agreed, “even informally,” to vote the same way, they would have to disclose a joint holding, and not doing so would break the law. Compare the Henkel family, whose voting pool is a written contract disclosed to the market (our Henkel post).
Why the Forum is asking
On 6 October, before the buyer was named, the Forum, chaired by Lee Nam-woo, asked Chey’s side whether the sale was meant to get around the “3% rule”. Under the revised Commercial Act, from next year’s annual meetings in March, the largest shareholder and its related parties together may vote no more than 3% of the voting shares when electing audit committee members, Asia Economy and MTN reported. The Forum’s worry: shares sold to outsiders fall outside that cap, so if the outsiders voted with Chey, the cap would bite less. The Forum raised a question; it did not show an agreement.
A fair caveat
The buyer’s identity rests on press reports, by Reuters and Korea’s SBS Biz, of a filing we have not seen; DealStreetAsia and others retell Reuters. DFO and the Dell family have not commented in the reports we read. The sale, scheduled to start on 2 November, had not settled as of 18 October 2026.
Five lessons to take away
- A family office can be the buyer a family needs. Patient private money can take a large block quickly when a seller needs cash.
- Check which Dell. The family office and the listed company share a name but are separate.
- “Friendly” is a hope, not a contract. Once there is an agreement to vote together, even an unwritten one, disclosure rules apply.
- Small stakes can still be added up. A 1.3% holder can become part of a much larger joint holding.
- Governance rules shape deal design. When the controlling group’s votes are capped, who buys the shares becomes a governance question.
Questions to bring to your advisors
If our family office bought shares from another family, what could we say or sign that would make us joint holders? How would we answer a regulator or an activist who asked how we plan to vote? Should we put our voting independence in writing? These are questions to bring to your advisors, not advice.
