Asia Tech Wire (Feb 21) -- South Korea's Samsung Electronics has liquidated its stake in Dutch chip equipment giant ASML, according to the latest news.

Samsung Electronics disclosed an audit report on Wednesday showing that the company sold the remaining 1.58 million ASML shares it held in the fourth quarter of last year, valued at about 1.2 trillion won.

According to Bloomberg, Samsung Electronics' sale of ASML shares is to solve the problem of financing for semiconductor process technology upgrades.

The chipmaker had spent about 700 billion won to acquire about 3% of ASML in 2012 for a lithography development partnership.

Samsung Electronics sold 1.3% of ASML shares in 2016, collecting around 600 billion won, and sold its remaining holdings in ASML from the second quarter of last year, cashing out around 3 trillion won in the second quarter and 1.3 trillion won in the third quarter.

Estimates suggest that Samsung Electronics' return on this 700 billion won investment amounts to about eight times.