Public Shopping, Criticized for 'Lax Management' Yet Reinitiates 140 Billion Won New Headquarters Construction

Choi Chang-hee, CEO of KBS Public Home Shopping, appeared at the National Assembly on October 16 last year for the National Audit of the Industrial, Trade, Energy, and Small and Medium Venture Business Committee regarding the Small and Medium Venture Business Promotion Corporation, responding to questions from lawmakers. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] Since its establishment, Public Shopping, which has been criticized for chronic deficits and ‘sloppy management,’ is expected to face controversy as it reinitiates the construction of a new headquarters building costing 140 billion KRW.

On the 9th, Public Shopping announced at a briefing on the ‘5th Anniversary Achievements and Plans’ held at the Government Seoul Office that it achieved sales of 454.5 billion KRW and a profit of 7.6 billion KRW in the first half of this year. It also revealed its ‘5 Major Innovation Strategy Projects’ to open the era of annual sales of 1 trillion KRW, including plans to realize sales commissions and transmission fees within five years and to promote the construction of a new headquarters building.

Regarding the promotion of the new headquarters construction, Public Shopping had previously been criticized by opposition lawmakers during the National Assembly’s audit of public institutions under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups last year, citing concerns over ‘capital erosion’ and ‘sloppy management suspicions.’ At that time, Kim Seonghwan, a member of the Liberty Korea Party (now the United Future Party), pointed out, “How will the 140 billion KRW planned for the new headquarters construction be secured, and how will the bank loan debt be managed?” Kim Giseon, also from the same party, criticized, “More than half of the 80 billion KRW capital has been lost due to large-scale deficits, yet they are recklessly pushing forward with the new headquarters construction.” In response, Choi Changhee, CEO of Public Home Shopping, replied, “We will proceed after turning a profit.”

Public Shopping, launched in 2015, is a company with the Small and Medium Business Distribution Center under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups as its largest shareholder. It was established with the principle of selling only domestically produced small and medium enterprise products, but it has consistently suffered deficits due to low commission rates in the 20% range. Operating losses were ▲199 billion KRW in 2015 ▲105 billion KRW in 2016 ▲45 billion KRW in 2017 ▲65 billion KRW in 2018 ▲95 billion KRW in the first half of last year.

Public Shopping expects that building a new headquarters will save the current building rental costs and improve the poor broadcasting environment. The annual rental cost for the current location, Digital Cube in Mapo-gu, Seoul, is 3.7 billion KRW, and the lease contract runs until 2023.

Public Shopping experienced consecutive live broadcast interruptions on April 17 and 21 last year, citing “a system power outage caused by internal power supply issues” as the cause, and subsequently undertook a broadcasting equipment redundancy construction project. Despite having spent 420 million KRW on studio renewal work a month before the broadcast interruptions, these repeated incidents led to criticism that the renewal work focused only on the studio’s appearance rather than improving broadcast quality.

Currently, Public Shopping is operating a ‘New Headquarters Construction Task Force’ in preparation for the expiration of the Seoul office lease contract. Gunpo City in Gyeonggi Province is reportedly being considered as the site for the new headquarters.

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