During the period when shareholders' meetings of Korean listed companies are held simultaneously, shareholder participation has increased... Corporate governance discussions are active

Domestic listed companies’ regular shareholders’ meetings are also concentrated at the end of March this year, and the so-called “shareholder meeting clustering” phenomenon continues. However, the number of companies submitting shareholder proposals and the actual approval cases have also increased, indicating that shareholder meetings are gradually moving away from formalistic operations, and discussions on shareholder rights exercise and governance structure improvement are expanding step by step.

According to the analysis results released on the 14th by the Korea Listed Companies Association and the Kosdaq Association, among 2,478 listed legal entities with December financial statements, 70.6% held their regular shareholders’ meetings at the end of March. This proportion is more concentrated than last year’s 66.7%. Regarding specific dates, 711 companies held meetings on March 26, 593 on the 31st, and 437 on the 27th. The concentration of shareholder meetings on nearby dates by multiple companies can make it difficult for institutional investors or small shareholders to thoroughly review proposals from multiple companies and exercise voting rights, which is regarded as a long-standing market issue. However, 1,199 companies, accounting for 48.4% of the total, scheduled their meetings outside the concentrated expected dates, an increase from 39.3% last year.

The most discussed proposal in this year’s regular shareholders’ meetings was the amendment of the articles of incorporation, submitted by 2,093 companies. Next were director appointments with 1,954 cases and supervisor or audit committee appointments with 1,453 companies. This indicates that companies are still focusing on adjusting their operational systems and restructuring the composition of the board of directors and supervisory bodies. Especially following the implementation of the third revision of the Company Act, 266 companies submitted and approved proposals related to the plans for the holding and disposal of shares that have been repurchased and are subject to mandatory cancellation. Treasury stock refers to shares that a company has repurchased from the market and holds, and how these are handled directly affects shareholder value and capital policies.

Shareholder proposal activities are also more active than last year. This year, 56 companies submitted shareholder proposals, an increase from 41 last year. Among them, 15 companies had more than one proposal approved, accounting for 26.8%. This is an increase of 2.4 percentage points from 24.4% last year. In terms of content, the highest proportion was for supervisor and audit committee appointments at 21.1%, followed by articles of incorporation amendments at 15.8%, director appointments at 13.5%, and treasury stock acquisition and cancellation at 12.0%. This is interpreted as shareholders no longer merely demanding increased dividends but also broadly raising issues such as strengthening supervisory functions, board composition, and shareholder return policies.

Improvements in dividend procedures and shareholder participation methods are also ongoing. Among the articles of incorporation amendment proposals, 176 companies adjusted to allow “setting a dividend payment date before the dividend base date,” and by the end of March, a total of 1,371 companies had completed related adjustments. This change aims to enable investors to make investment decisions after confirming how much dividend they can receive. Additionally, among 1,197 listed companies implementing dividend payments based on financial statements, 394 have adopted this dividend procedure improvement. The number of companies introducing electronic voting or electronic proxy systems has also increased to 1,608 from 1,489 last year. This trend is likely to continue toward dispersing shareholder meeting schedules, expanding shareholder participation, and enhancing transparency in corporate governance structures.