Hyundai Motor shares hit 22-month high on restructuring hope

SEOUL (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co shares on Tuesday rallied over 9 percent to their highest level in 22 months on hopes that its parent group controlled by Chairman Chung Mong-koo may reorganise its structure.

Market speculation is that U.S. activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp may have bought a share in Hyundai Motor, South Korea's top automaker, analysts said. Elliott did not immediately comment. Hyundai Motor said it does not comment on market speculation.

Elliott last year pressured Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to restructure and pay a special dividend. The South Korean tech giant subsequently said it would consider creating a holding company and boost dividends.

Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea's No.2 conglomerate after Samsung Group, may hurry to overhaul its group structure as politicians call for reforms of family-owned conglomerates, following a graft scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, analysts said.

"The company is part of a particularly complex and suboptimal capital and corporate structure, and we see significant value that can be unlocked from restructuring," Goldman Sachs said in a report on Hyundai Motor on Monday.

"In contrast to the consensus view that Hyundai Mobis would become the ultimate holding company, we see Hyundai Motor as the nexus for restructuring," the report said.

Its affiliates, Kia Motors Corp and Hyundai Mobis Co Ltd, climbed more than 4 percent.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Additional reporting by Dahee Kim and Se Young Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates)