Asiana Airlines 'Listing Maintained'... Stock Trading Resumes from Tomorrow (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] Trading of Asiana Airlines' shares will resume.

On the 15th, the Korea Exchange announced that the Listing Committee decided to maintain the listing of Asiana Airlines after reviewing its listing eligibility. The listing maintenance was also decided for Asiana Airlines' subsidiaries, Air Busan and Asiana IDT.

Earlier, when former Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-gu was indicted and detained on charges including 'unfair support of affiliates,' the exchange suspended trading of the three companies' stocks on May 26 while reviewing whether they were subject to a substantive review of listing eligibility.

Last month, the exchange designated Asiana Airlines as a subject for the Listing Committee's substantive review of listing eligibility and examined whether there were any issues with maintaining the listing.

However, according to this announcement, trading of the three companies' shares is scheduled to resume on the 16th, 51 days after the suspension. The last trading price of Asiana Airlines shares before the suspension was 17,200 KRW, with a market capitalization of 1.2799 trillion KRW.

Asiana Airlines plans to significantly expand the authority of its board of directors to improve corporate governance. First, it will separate the roles of the board chairman and the CEO to strengthen the board's independence. Additionally, it will separate decision-making and business execution to establish transparent management and a stable governance structure.

Furthermore, the company will establish an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Committee, a Compensation Committee, and a Safety Committee within the board, centered on inside directors, to strengthen external management oversight functions.

To this end, Asiana Airlines launched an ESG task force on the 12th and plans to propose amendments to the articles of incorporation for the establishment of these committees as an agenda item at next year's regular shareholders' meeting.

Moreover, it is expected that the financial structure will improve through large-scale capital expansion following mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with Korean Air. Asiana Airlines is known to plan to use the proceeds from Korean Air's paid-in capital increase for operating funds and debt repayment to improve capital erosion and debt ratio.

Jung Sung-kwon, CEO of Asiana Airlines, stated, "I sincerely apologize for the disappointment caused by the trading suspension due to the listing eligibility review," and added, "We will strive to prevent recurrence through board-centered management, checks, and monitoring."

Meanwhile, on the 15th, Asiana Airlines announced that it will additionally acquire 43,782,819 shares of its subsidiary Air Busan for approximately 97.9 billion KRW. The purpose of this stock acquisition is "to improve Air Busan's financial structure through capital expansion and to maintain our controlling interest."

After the acquisition, Asiana Airlines' stake in Air Busan will be 40%. The scheduled acquisition date is October 1.

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