Gu Ji-eun, Ourhome Proposes Agenda for Extraordinary General Meeting on '61% Share Buyback'

Securing Eldest Daughter's Shares as a Strategy to Defend Management Control

Amid a conflict between siblings in the owner family over the management rights of the meal service company Ourhome, it has been confirmed that Vice Chairman Gu Ji-eun's side has proposed a plan to purchase treasury shares at the extraordinary general meeting scheduled for the 31st.

Ourhome Magok Food Research Center
[Photo by Ourhome]

According to industry sources on the 16th, Vice Chairman Gu's side submitted an agenda at this extraordinary general meeting to use Ourhome's distributable profit of 533.1 billion KRW to buy back 14,019,520 treasury shares, equivalent to 61% of the total shares, within one year.

This is interpreted as Vice Chairman Gu attempting to purchase treasury shares to maintain management control. Ourhome's shares are held over 98% by the late Chairman Gu Ja-hak's one son and three daughters. The shareholding proportions of the four are: former Vice Chairman Gu Bon-seong 38.56%, eldest daughter Gu Mi-hyun 19.28%, second daughter Gu Myung-jin 19.6%, and youngest daughter Vice Chairman Gu 20.67%. If Ourhome buys Gu Mi-hyun's shares as treasury shares, the voting rights of those shares (19.28%) will disappear. This would allow the combined shareholding ratio of Vice Chairman Gu and second daughter Gu Myung-jin to surpass former Vice Chairman Gu, and also prevent the eldest son and eldest daughter from joining forces.

Currently, Ourhome is embroiled in a dispute over management rights among the owner siblings. At last month's general meeting, Gu Mi-hyun sided with former Vice Chairman Gu Bon-seong, rejecting the reappointment of existing inside directors including the youngest sister Vice Chairman Gu, and approving the appointment of herself and her husband Lee Young-yeol, a former professor at Hanyang University College of Medicine, as inside directors. Although companies with capital exceeding 1 billion KRW must have at least three inside directors, only two were newly appointed at last month's meeting, so additional inside directors must be appointed at the extraordinary general meeting at the end of this month.