Korea Zinc: "MBK's Claim of '3.4 Trillion KRW Corporate Value Damage' is Groundless... Statistical Distortion"

Refutation of MBK's Press Conference on the 10th
"MBK's Claims Are Merely 'Assumptions'"

MBK Partners criticized Korea Zinc's investment decisions and management methods, claiming a decline in corporate value, to which Korea Zinc responded by calling it "baseless claims."

On the 11th, Korea Zinc stated in a press release, "MBK made baseless claims at a press conference that since CEO Yoonbeom Choi's appointment, Korea Zinc has executed at least 1.2 trillion KRW without proper board oversight, and spread fake news that this investment damaged corporate value by 3.4 trillion KRW."

The day before, MBK held a press conference asserting that since Chairman Choi took full control of management, Korea Zinc's shareholder value and corporate value have declined. They proposed to restore shareholder value through ▲stock split ▲complete cancellation of treasury shares ▲regular disclosure of dividend policies.

Kim Kwang-il, Vice Chairman of MBK Partners, held a press conference on the 10th at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, explaining the 'Improvement of Korea Zinc's Corporate Governance and Shareholder Value Recovery Plan.' Photo by MBK Partners

Korea Zinc argued, "To support these claims, MBK arbitrarily applied unfamiliar concepts such as ‘EBITDA loss before opportunity amortization,’ ‘opportunity corporate value loss,’ and ‘opportunity shareholder value loss,’ which are not used in accounting or finance, misleading the market, shareholders, and media with speculative data and damaging our company's reputation."

In particular, MBK's claims were based on the assumption that if investments related to new businesses such as resource circulation amounting to 582 billion KRW, simple investments like fund investments of about 569 billion KRW, and treasury share buyback costs of 900 billion KRW had been properly invested in appropriate businesses, they could have generated a value of 3.4 trillion KRW.

Korea Zinc stated, "This clearly shows MBK's lack of understanding of the mid- to long-term vision and plans for the new businesses Korea Zinc is pursuing, as well as their lack of management capability," and evaluated that "they created distorted data without understanding the difference between financial investment activities and business investment activities."

A company official emphasized, "MBK is disparaging the world's No. 1 non-ferrous metals company, which has been built together with employees, shareholders, and the local community, through statistical distortion and baseless claims, and is instead damaging Korea Zinc's corporate value through hostile mergers and acquisitions (M&A)."

They added, "Korea Zinc plans to steadily and diligently pursue new renewable energy businesses, secondary battery material businesses, and resource circulation businesses to achieve sales of 25 trillion KRW by 2033, according to the long-term vision and plans emphasized at Investor Day last December."