Korea's audit board faults the extra 0.96 points that pushed YTN's sale past 30%

The gap was 0.96 of a percentage point. KEPCO KDN and the Korea Racing Authority held 30.95% of YTN between them, and the Broadcasting Act stops a large company from holding 30% or more of a broadcaster. So an offer of 29.99% was a block a conglomerate could legally buy, and the full holding was not ^[2][4][1]. The slice the two institutions were instructed to add comes to about 3.1% of what they were selling ^[2]. Their adviser's advice ran the other way. Staying under the ceiling would widen the pool of bidders and lift the proceeds ^[2][5].

Selling 29.99% would also have left 0.96% of YTN sitting on two state balance sheets ^[1]. The commission's letters to the two supervising ministries said combining the stakes and selling them in full would be desirable, and the commission had its working-level division send them without any internal deliberation ^[8].

The board stopped short of a number. It said a management premium might have risen had large companies joined the bidding. It also said the amount cannot be determined, and that this makes it difficult to judge whether the stake was sold below value ^[13]. A control premium is priced in a negotiation, and with no large bidder in the room there was no negotiation to reconstruct. The findings released on the 14th do not include the sale price or the name of the winning bidder ^[1][3].

The audit therefore supports one half of the case against the intervention and not the other: bidding by large companies was restricted ^[12], and the question of a shortfall in the proceeds stays open ^[13]. Two readings compete. On the first, the instruction cost the state real money and the board lacks the instrument to size it. On the second, no large company would have bid in 2023 in any event, and the board wrote its premium sentence conditionally ^[13].

I'd expect the procedural finding to be the one that travels, because it needs no counterfactual. The board says the trade ministry and the commission went beyond their authority in having the two institutions alter a joint sale agreement reached through proper procedures ^[11]. Anyone who wants the loss in won has to build the valuation the board declined to attempt ^[13].