The day the record sales performance was announced, the board of directors for the next CEO
Re-public offer due to the largest shareholder raising the issue of the national pension
Hyun-mo Koo, the current CEO, reapplied and sought a new open competition
KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo gives a New Year’s address at the 2023 KT Group New Year Ceremony held at the KT office building in Songpa-gu, Seoul on January 2. Provided by KT
Even after KT opened the period of 25 trillion won in sales for the first time last year, he could not laugh. This is because the procedure for the reappointment of current CEO Koo Hyun-mo has been canceled due to the issue of the National Pension Service, the largest shareholder. KT’s board of directors held a plenary meeting on the 9th and decided to invalidate the board’s previously upheld decisions and challenge the next representative candidate again from scratch.
According to KT, the board of directors held a meeting on the procedure for appointing the next representative on the morning of the same day, and decided to re-recruit candidates for representative on the principle of open competition from the 10th. The board of directors transparently discloses the list of candidates and the results of each stage of the screening, while forming a personnel advisory group with external experts to check internal and external candidates.
Previously, KT’s board of directors decided to recommend the final recommendation as a candidate for the next representative director in December last year, but the National Pension Service, the largest shareholder, expressed its opposition. As of the closing date of the shareholder list (December 27 last year), the share of the national pension in KT is 10.13%. Seo Won-joo, head of the National Pension Fund Management Headquarters, issued a press release about 3 hours after the announcement by the KT board of directors and said, “The situation is that it does not comply with the basic principle of competition. the decision of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) candidate must be made in accordance with a transparent and fair procedure.” he emphasized.
CEO Koo, who has already expressed his intention to open a competition, is expected to apply for the representative appointment process again and be evaluated with new candidates.
Meanwhile, KT announced in the afternoon of the same day that consolidated sales in 2022 recorded KRW 25.65 trillion, up 3.0% from the previous year. Annual sales exceeded 25 trillion won for the first time since listing in 1998, and operating profit exceeded 1.6 trillion won for two consecutive years at 1.69 trillion won on a consolidated basis. Regarding last year’s performance, KT self-evaluated that it was “an increase in profitability due to the acceleration of conversion to ‘Digico’ (a digital platform company).”
Reporter Seong-guk Park
