Hanmi chairman gives away 110 billion won in stock to workers

Hanmi Pharmaceutical said on Monday that the founder and chairman, Lim Sung-ki, decided to donate 110 billion won ($92.5 million) worth of stock he owns in the holding company, Hanmi Science, to all of his employees.

Lim owns 900,000 shares of Hanmi Science that will be distributed to 2,800 employees. The amount of donated shares accounts for 4.3 percent of all shares the founder and chairman owns. It is also roughly 1.6 percent of the total shares issued by Hanmi Science.

According to the pharmaceutical company, each employee will receive the shares equivalent to 1,000 percent of their monthly salary. The stock that will be distributed to the employees will be based on the closing price on Dec. 30, the last trading day of 2015. It was valued at 129,000 won a share.

On average, each employee will receive shares worth roughly 40 million won.

The handout of the shares is to celebrate the company’s achievements last year. Hanmi made headlines last year when it developed seven new drugs and won license contracts worth 8 trillion won that led to exporting products to major global drug companies including Eli Lilly and Company, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi and Janssen.

As a result, the company’s stock started to rise. Hanmi Science shares that were worth 15,200 won per share early last year surged to 129,000 won by the end of 2015.

With the hike in stock value, the book value of stocks owned by Chairman Lim was worth 2.67 trillion won. That is a 2.3 trillion won increase in just a year.