SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's National Pension Service (NPS) said on Friday it has increased its holdings in Samsung C&T Corp (>> Samsung C&T) to about 18.56 million common shares as of June 30 from 15.85 million shares before June 4.

The increase takes NPS's holdings to around 11.9 percent of C&T's total outstanding shares from around 10.2 percent earlier, according to Reuters calculations.

NPS is the biggest single shareholder in Samsung C&T. It could be the swing shareholder vote in Samsung Group's $8 billion planned merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries Inc (>> Cheil Industries Inc), that has been contested by U.S. hedge fund Elliott Associates.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Stocks treated in this article : Samsung C&T, Cheil Industries Inc