Many foreign institutional investors expressed their opposition to the reelection of Outside Director Park Jae-wan at the Samsung Electronics' board of directors' meeting.
Samsung Electronics will hold a general shareholders' meeting on March 20 and decide on four issues, including approval for the 2018 financial statements, ▲ approval of outside directors, ▲ approval of compensation limit of directors.
Most of the agendas are likely to pass smoothly. However, it is expected that a vote will be inevitable on the re-appointment of Outside Director Park Jae-wan.
According to the Korea Corporate Governance Service's pre-disclosure on the exercise of voting rights by domestic and foreign pension funds, four out of six overseas pension funds, including the CalSTARS, SBA Florida, CPPIB, and the BCI, have expressed the opposition to the re-election of Outside Director Park.
They are also opposed to Park Jae-wan's nomination for an auditor. The CalStars also announced that it would vote against Kim Han-jo's nomination for outside director and auditor.
Park Jae-wan, former minister of strategy and finance, is a professor at Sungkyunkwan University. Voting rights advisors here and abroad are questioning Park`s independence from the company, citing that Sungkyunkwan University is in a special relationship that could be affected by Samsung Group`s influence. Overseas pension funds that opposed Park is also taking issue with independence.