It appears that Samsung isn’t the only one a little rattled from its encounter with Elliott Management – corporate Korea itself might be making some changes as well.
According to the Korea Herald, Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Park Yong-maan called on his nation’s business leaders to “improve their governance to raise their competitiveness and maximize shareholders’ value in their bid to protect themselves from attacks by short-term gainers.”
Nice. Should local companies actually follow his call, foreign investors might actually return to South Korea after years of snubbing the region due to its hopelessly opaque and incredibly convoluted corporate governance and ownership structures. The Kospi might even see its forward P/E ratio rise towards those of its peers.
The talks weren’t all rainbows and butterflies for foreign investors though, some of the more skittish members of the group brought up the possibility of introducing poison pills and dual-class shares as options to further solidify their grip on their own companies.
Wonder why they don’t just take out the need for activism in the first place.
Photo: Republic of Korea