Samsung Electronics Surpasses 2 Million Shareholders... Next Month's General Meeting to Be Broadcast Online for the First Time in History

Samsung Electronics Seocho Building, Seocho-gu, Seoul [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] Samsung Electronics, which surpassed 2 million small shareholders last year, plans to broadcast this year’s shareholders meeting online. Accordingly, Samsung Electronics’ shareholders meeting is expected to be held simultaneously online and offline for the first time in history.

According to related industries on the 12th, Samsung Electronics has decided to hold the 52nd regular shareholders meeting, scheduled for mid-next month, online as well, and is reportedly preparing for the online live broadcast. Earlier, the Samsung Compliance Committee recommended holding the shareholders meeting concurrently online, considering shareholder-friendly management enhancement and the recent COVID-19 situation, and Samsung Electronics accepted this and decided to introduce it starting this year.

Samsung Electronics plans to maintain the electronic voting system introduced at last year’s shareholders meeting this year as well. Accordingly, Samsung Electronics shareholders will be able to vote on agenda items and watch the progress of the shareholders meeting online without attending in person. The on-site shareholders meeting is expected to be held at the Suwon Convention Center, as it was last year.

At this shareholders meeting, approval will be sought for the payment of a settlement dividend amounting to 13.1 trillion won based on a special dividend of 1,578 won per share, as well as decisions on the reappointment and new appointment of inside and outside directors whose terms are expiring.

Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam of the Device Solutions (DS) division, President Kim Hyun-suk of the Consumer Electronics (CE) division, and President Ko Dong-jin of the IT & Mobile (IM) division, whose terms expire in March this year, are expected to be reappointed as inside directors as they were retained in the recent executive personnel reshuffle. Among outside directors, the reappointment of Professor Park Byung-guk of Seoul National University, Chairman Kim Jong-hoon of Kiswire Mobile, and Professor Kim Sun-wook of Ewha Womans University, whose terms expire next month, will be decided.

According to the Korea Securities Depository, the number of Samsung Electronics shareholders reached a record high of 2,154,081 as of the end of last year. Among them, individual small shareholders numbered 2,145,317, accounting for 99.59% of the total. The number of shares they hold is 387,192,801, which is about 6.48% of the total.

The number of Samsung Electronics shareholders was about 144,000 as of the 2017 fiscal year-end, then surged to 761,000 by the end of 2018 due to a 50-to-1 stock split. In 2019, the number was 568,000 as of year-end. Last year, due to the stock investment craze known as the “Donghak Ant Movement,” individual investors flocked to Samsung Electronics shares, resulting in the number of shareholders nearly quadrupling in one year.

Meanwhile, attention is focused on whether the company’s official stance on Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison in the “National Pension Scandal” and was re-incarcerated last month, will be announced at the shareholders meeting. The company has not issued an official statement on the re-incarceration of the group head, citing that it is a personal trial of Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

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