Luxury giants send over 2 trillion won in dividends from Korea to overseas parents: CEOScore

The Korean units of five major luxury brands — Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel, Dior and Cartier — remitted more than 2 trillion won ($1.3 billion) in dividends to their overseas parent companies over the past three years, according to a report released Wednesday.

Corporate data tracker CEOScore released the report on the financial performance and dividend payments of the top 100 foreign-invested companies by sales, based on standalone financial statements from 2023 through 2025. The companies are registered under Korea's Foreign Investment Promotion Act.

The top 100 foreign-invested companies paid a combined 18.49 trillion won in dividends over the three years, according to the report. That amounted to 52 percent of their combined net profit of 35.5 trillion won during the same period.

In comparison, the 10 largest domestic companies by sales posted a combined net profit of 213.31 trillion won and paid 62.85 trillion won in dividends during the same period, resulting in a dividend payout ratio of 29.5 percent.

Unlike listed Korean companies, foreign-invested firms typically remit most of their dividends to overseas parent companies. A larger dividend payment generally indicates that more profits are being sent abroad rather than reinvested in their Korean operations.

Luxury fashion brands stood out in particular for the scale of their dividend payments.

The Korean entities of Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel, Christian Dior Couture and Richemont Korea, which operates Cartier in Korea, paid a combined 2.11 trillion won in dividends to their parent companies over the past three years.

Louis Vuitton Korea paid the largest amount at 599.3 billion won, excluding its annual dividend for 2025.

Hermès Korea paid 570 billion won, followed by Chanel Korea with 422.5 billion won, excluding its 2025 annual dividend, Christian Dior Couture Korea with 340 billion won and Richemont Korea with 176.8 billion won.

BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]