Outside Director Ratio in Conglomerates Rises after Introduction of Stewardship Code

The ratio of outside directors on the boards of the 137 listed affiliates of the top 30 business groups rose from 34.5 percent to 37.3 percent in four years after the introduction of the stewardship code, a survey has found out.

Daishin Economic Research Institute recently looked into director appointments of these companies that held ordinary shareholder meetings this year.

According to the institute, the 137 companies newly appointed a total of 240 outside directors at this year's ordinary shareholder meetings, with slightly less than 30 percent of the outside directors coming from the government, supervisory offices and judicial institutions. The ratio of such outside directors was 31.8 percent in 2016 and 30.2 percent in 2019.

In Hyundai Motor Group, which has governance issues in relation to succession of corporate control, the ratio of outside directors from the authorities is 45 percent. In addition, the ratio is 56.5 percent in Hanjin Group, 36.7 percent in Lotte Group, 30 percent in LG Group and 20.8 percent in Samsung Group.