Cash and cashable assets held by South Korea’s 100 listed companies have more than tripled over the last eight years, financial data showed on Thursday.

Bellwether Samsung Electronics Co. turned 13 times richer and Hyundai Motor five times, according to data Democratic Party Rep. Park Kwang-on gained from authorities.

As of the end of last year, cashable assets held by 100 largest companies listed on the main Kospi (excluding financial and preferred stocks) in terms of market cap reached 127.78 trillion won ($112.8 billion) , ballooning from 36.43 trillion won at the end of 2008.

Total assets of the 100 Kospi-listed firms more than doubled from 777.98 trillion won to 2,084.41 trillion won during the same period.

Samsung Electronics had 32.11 trillion in its cash hoard, compared with 2.36 trillion won eight years ago. Hyundai Motor was next cash-rich, having 7.89 trillion won worth versus 1.76 trillion won in 2008. Cashable assets of SK jumped 10,000 percent to 7.09 trillion won from 60 billion won, Hyundai Heavy Industries 648 percent to 4.33 trillion, and Kia Motors 336 percent to 3.06 trillion.

The bigger the market cap, the more cash they earned. The top 10 companies raised their cash assets 606.2 percent to 54.72 trillion won, while the top 20 gained 412.7 percent to 79.23 trillion won. The top 30 increased 389.9 percent to 90.62 trillion won.

Park urged big companies to reinvest instead of piling up their cash stock for long-term growth.

By Kim Gi-chul and Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]