- South Korea's SK Telecom (SKM +1.1%) is set to buy back 2.02M of its shares -- about 523B won worth ($438.2M) -- and to buy back an Internet portal unit owned by its mobile platform affiliate.
- The company will retake a 64.5% stake in SK Communications, the portal unit, from SK Planet for about 200B won ($168M). SK Planet had taken over the controlling stake in the Internet portal in 2007.
- The share buyback is credit negative, Moody's says, but isn't affecting its ratings on the company at the moment. It'll increase adjusted debt/EBITDA by 0.1x -- to 1.9x by year-end -- but "we do expect the company to manage down its leverage to 1.8x over the next 12-18 months through an improvement in profitability and/or monetization of some non-core assets."