Samsung has bought a 10-percent stake in Pantech, a South Korean mobile phone maker known primarily for its huge, feature-packed handsets, Yonhap News reports.
The deal is valued at around 53 billion won ($47.6 million). With this move, Samsung will become Pantech's third-largest stake holder, following chip maker Qualcomm, which owns 11.96% of Pantech, and Korea's Development Bank, which owns a 11.81% of the company.
Domestically, Pantech is the third-largest mobile phone maker, behind Samsung and LG. In the U.S., it's producing branded mobile phones for Verizon and AT&T. Still, the company is struggling with debt, which is exactly how Qualcomm became the company's largest stakeholder -- by converting $75 million of royalty debt into equity.
For Samsung, the $47.6 million spent is just a small piece of its growing mountain of cash, which at the end of March was around $28.5 billion.
Since Pantech is Samsung's direct competitor in South Korea, LG is probably not very thrilled by this move -- and if an anti-competitive suit were to appear, it wouldn't be too surprising either.