Companies without a Controlling Shareholder
The financial authorities are preparing to improve the governance structure of companies with dispersed ownership. In Korea, privatized public companies such as POSCO and KT, and financial holding companies such as Woori, Shinhan, Hana, and KB Financial Groups have dispersed ownership without a controlling shareholder or owner.
For years so far, those companies have caused a lot of controversy regarding chairperson appointment and, as such, how to improve their governance structures has emerged as an important issue. In many of those companies, the CEOs have taken overall control to serve consecutive terms, even when inappropriate.
President Yoon Suk Yeol also remarked on Jan. 30 that a better stewardship needs to be applied to those companies. The Financial Services Commission is planning to start from changing the Act on Corporate Governance of Financial Companies to focus more on internal control, and the revision plan is likely to be announced this month or next month.