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Bid to oust Hanmi Pharmaceutical leadership fails

Published: 19 Dec. 2024, 19:00

LEE JAE-LIM
[email protected]

Hanmi Pharmaceutical CEO Park Jae-hyun at the extraordinary shareholder meeting held in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Thursday. [YONHAP]

Efforts to seize the management rights of Hanmi Pharmaceutical Group through a board reshuffle were dissolved on Thursday as shareholders backed a mother-daughter faction during an extraordinary general meeting.

The meeting’s main agenda was to remove Hanmi Pharmaceutical CEO Park Jae-hyun from his top position and to dismiss Hanyang Precision Chairman Shin Dong-kuk from the board.

Shin, the largest individual shareholder of the pharmaceutical company, belongs to the majority seven out of 10 board members who aligned with Song Yeong-sook, the wife of Hanmi’s late founder, Lim Sung-ki, and her daughter Lim Joo-hyun.

The proposals failed to secure the necessary two-thirds of majority of the votes from participating shareholders at the Seoul Transportation Center in Songpa District, southern Seoul.

The attendance rate recorded 80.59 percent, or 10,219,107 shares out of the total 12,680,214 shares.

The proposals to dismiss Park and Shin received supporting votes of 53.62 percent and 53.64 percent respectively.

The proposals to appoint two new directors, Hanmi Science Vice President Park Jun-seok and Hanmi Fine Chemical CEO Jang Young-gil, were automatically withdrawn. Both are allies of the founder’s sons, Lim Jong-hoon and Lim Jong-yoon.

The appointments were intended to shift the board’s composition, which currently holds a majority in favor of the mother-daughter faction.

“I deeply thank our shareholders for reaffirming their confidence in the solid leadership under a professional management system,” Park Jae-hyun said in a press statement after the meeting.

“With a sense of indebtedness to our shareholders, I will devote myself wholeheartedly to enhancing the value of Hanmi Pharmaceutical with humility,” Park Jae-hyun said, adding that more concrete policies at the benefit of shareholders will be outlined at the annual general meeting in March next year.

Hanmi Science CEO Lim Jong-hoon briefly stated that he respected the shareholder decision and would do his “utmost to ensure that the entire group operates at its best and moves toward the right goals, despite concerning factors, as the holding company’s CEO.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]