[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] The court has permitted Helixmith's minority shareholders to inspect the shareholder registry. This has drawn attention to whether the voting power of minority shareholders will consolidate further.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure on the 8th, the Seoul Southern District Court approved the provisional injunction request for inspection and copying of the shareholder registry filed by five minority shareholders of Helixmith on the 4th. The court ruled that Helixmith must allow minority shareholders to view the shareholder registry and copy it using photos or storage devices.
Accordingly, the consolidation of Helixmith's minority shareholders is expected to accelerate. Recently, Helixmith's minority shareholders have opened a cafe and are collecting proxy voting forms from shareholders to request an extraordinary general meeting and appoint professional management. Securing the shareholder registry is expected to enable them to collect more proxy forms.
As of January 15, the largest shareholder, Helixmith CEO Kim Sun-young, holds a 6.67% stake. Including shares held by related parties, the total is about 9.42%. At the end of the third quarter last year, the largest shareholders held 12.14%, but CEO Kim's stake decreased after selling some shares and not participating in a rights offering at the end of last year.
On the other hand, as of the end of the third quarter last year, the number of minority shareholders was 63,439, holding 86.82% of the total shares. Considering the decrease in the largest shareholder's stake after the rights offering at the end of last year, the minority shareholders' stake is expected to have increased further.
Previously, Helixmith's stock price plummeted after the failure to reach conclusions in the U.S. clinical trial of its major pipeline, the diabetic neuropathy treatment Engensis (VM202), due to trial design failure in 2019. The stock price, which was around 180,000 KRW at the beginning of 2019, dropped to the 60,000 KRW range by the end of that year.
In this situation, it was revealed last year that Helixmith suffered losses of about 250 billion KRW by investing in high-risk private equity funds, causing the market to lose trust. Helixmith, with annual sales of about 4.5 billion KRW, using funds meant for clinical research for speculative investments was enough to anger shareholders.
Furthermore, when Helixmith hurriedly conducted a 161.2 billion KRW rights offering last year to avoid being designated as a management stock, CEO Kim, the largest shareholder, did not participate, igniting minority shareholder activism. At that time, CEO Kim stated that he lacked funds to participate in the rights offering, but it was later reported that he invested in shares of subsidiaries, sparking controversy.
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