Half of Listed Companies Use Electronic Voting at General Meetings... 40% of Outside Directors Are Professors or Lawyers

The Most Common Agenda Item is Director Appointment
Women Account for 5.8% of New Appointments

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] More than half of the companies listed on the KOSPI introduced electronic voting at their shareholder meetings this year. The most common agenda item was the appointment of directors, and nearly 40% of the outside directors appointed this year were professors and lawyers.

On the 8th, the Korea Listed Companies Association announced the results of a survey on the status of regular shareholder meetings held this year by 759 companies listed on the KOSPI with December fiscal year-ends. According to the survey, 440 companies (58.0%) among the surveyed firms implemented electronic voting. Additionally, 434 companies (57.2%) prepared various methods for exercising voting rights, such as encouraging proxy voting.

Excluding agenda items that are mandatory every year for approvals such as financial statements and executive compensation limits, the most frequently proposed agenda at this year’s regular shareholder meetings was the 'appointment of directors.' A total of 694 companies (85.5%) proposed this agenda item.

Accordingly, 646 companies (85.1%) appointed a total of 1,867 directors (966 inside directors, 816 outside directors, and 85 other non-executive directors). Among them, 809 (43.3%) were newly appointed, and 1,058 (56.7%) were reappointed. A representative from the Listed Companies Association explained, "Among the 816 appointed outside directors, the majority, 439 (53.8%), were newly appointed, which appears to be influenced by the newly established legal restrictions on the reappointment of outside directors under the Commercial Act."

Among the appointed directors, 94.2% (1,759) were male. Female executives accounted for 108 (5.8%). Of the appointed female directors, the majority, 55, were appointed at companies with total assets exceeding 2 trillion won in the most recent fiscal year. Among the 646 companies that appointed directors, 8.7% (56 companies) appointed female directors.

Meanwhile, the most common profession among appointed outside directors was professor at 28.0%, followed by businesspeople (18.8%) and lawyers (11.6%). Professors and lawyers together accounted for nearly 40%.