Among the 41 companies that had shareholders' proposals presented at this year's regular shareholders' meeting, 10 companies passed at least one proposal, resulting in a passing rate of 24.4%. This is a decrease of 12.2 percentage points compared to last year, when 15 companies (passing rate of 36.6%) passed shareholders' proposals.
The Korea Corporate Governance Service and the Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) Association noted on the 22nd that this is the result of analyzing the operation status and key features of the regular shareholders' meetings of a total of 2,440 companies with settlement of account in December.
The most frequently presented agenda item at this year's regular shareholders' meetings was 'director election' (1,896 companies). This was followed by the appointment of auditors and audit committee members (1,199 companies) and amendments to the articles of incorporation (920 companies). Notably, 126 companies made adjustments to allow for 'deciding on dividends up front - investing afterward' in their agenda items. Cumulatively, a total of 1,137 companies have now been able to decide on dividends up front - investing afterward.
'Deciding on dividends up front - investing afterward' essentially means moving the standard date for receiving settlement of account dividends from the end of the year (December 31) to around 2-4 months before and after the regular shareholders' meeting. The idea is to allow shareholders to hold shares until the dividend record date (a day in 2-4 months) with prior awareness of dividend eligibility.
The concentration of shareholders' meetings remained. During the fifth week of March, 66.7% of all listed companies held regular shareholders' meetings on Wednesday (55 companies), Friday (571 companies), and Monday (512 companies). This is a slight decrease from 70.8% last year, but the Korea Corporate Governance Service and the Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) Association pointed out that it remains a high level.
Additionally, the number of companies that participated in the 'distributed compliance program for shareholders' meetings' and held regular shareholders' meetings on dates other than the expected concentrated dates dropped to 957 (39.3%), down from last year's 42.9%. This is the lowest in three years.
The number of companies that implemented either electronic voting or electronic proxy voting systems was 1,489 (61%). The Korea Corporate Governance Service and the Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) Association assessed that these systems are becoming standard practices for enhancing the convenience of non-face-to-face voting rights and exercising voting rights for shareholders.