Hanwha Major Affiliates Launch Full-Scale 'Shareholder-Friendly Management'

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] Major affiliates of Hanwha Group are accelerating 'shareholder-friendly management' through strengthening management transparency and improving governance.

Hanwha Solutions will introduce an 'audio webcasting' system starting from the Q1 earnings presentation on the 12th. This is the first time a Hanwha affiliate has held an earnings presentation via webcasting.

With the introduction of webcasting, shareholders and stakeholders of Hanwha Solutions can access the company's website and listen to the earnings presentation in real time. Compared to the existing conference calls, which only allowed limited participants such as securities analysts or fund managers to join by phone, this is regarded as a more shareholder-friendly system.

A Hanwha Solutions official said, "In a situation where domestic and international economic uncertainties persist, the purpose is to enhance management transparency by enabling shareholders and other stakeholders to more easily access company information through webcasting."

Hanwha Group's seven listed companies, including Hanwha Corporation, Hanwha Solutions, Hanwha Aerospace, Hanwha Systems, Hanwha Life Insurance, Hanwha General Insurance, and Hanwha Investment & Securities, have all adopted electronic voting systems at their shareholders' meetings. Starting with Hanwha Investment & Securities in 2009, the electronic voting system has been introduced sequentially to support shareholders' smooth exercise of voting rights.

Hanwha Group is also accelerating efforts to improve governance.

The governance improvement efforts of Hanwha Group began in earnest in 2018 with the establishment of the Compliance Committee and the dissolution of the Management Planning Office. The Hanwha Compliance Committee was established to formulate group-level compliance policies, monitor the implementation status of each affiliate, and provide related advisory services. Former Supreme Court Justice Lee Hong-hoon was appointed as chairman, and former SungKongHoe University President Lee Jung-gu and former Seoul National University Law School Dean Cho Hong-sik were appointed as members. Among the five members, a majority of three are distinguished external experts.

Since its launch, to enhance transparency in group management, establish a foundation for responsible management, and strengthen board-centered management, the Management Planning Office was dissolved, and it was recommended that Hanwha Corporation perform minimal group representative functions as the top-tier holding company.

Subsequently, major Hanwha affiliates have sequentially excluded group-affiliated outside directors to strengthen the independence of outside directors and introduced an open outside director nomination system to expand the pool of candidates and diversify nomination channels.

In particular, external experts are being actively recruited as outside directors. As a result, Hanwha Group currently has a total of 38 outside directors across 10 affiliates. None of these outside directors are former Hanwha employees; all are externally recruited personnel.

Recently, outside directors with expertise in various fields have been continuously joining.

Hanwha Energy, at the end of last month, became the first non-listed Hanwha Group company (excluding financial firms) to recruit Kim Kyung-soo, a lawyer from Yulchon LLC, and Lee Hwang, a professor at Korea University Law School, as outside directors. Although non-listed companies are not legally required to appoint outside directors under current Commercial Law, Hanwha Energy introduced the outside director system to strengthen management transparency. Additionally, an internal transactions committee composed of two newly appointed outside directors and one inside director was established. Through this, the company expects to strictly control internal transactions among affiliates and preemptively block transactions that may raise concerns of unfairness or improper support.

Hanwha Solutions appointed two overseas experts in energy and future new industries, Amanda Bush and Satoshi Shima, as outside directors at the March shareholders' meeting. Amanda Bush is an energy expert currently working as a consultant in the energy sector at St. Augustine Capital in the U.S. Satoshi Shima, an expert in new industries, previously served as Chief of Staff at SoftBank Japan.

Hanwha Corporation appointed Professor Lee Seok-jae of Seoul National University’s Department of Philosophy as an outside director at the March shareholders' meeting. This appointment of a humanities scholar as an outside director aims to enhance not only Hanwha’s economic value but also the social value of 'Together Far'.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.