After 4 months of suspension… stock price defense
Osstem Implant, whose stock trading was suspended due to an employee embezzlement of 221.5 billion won, resumes trading after about four months. Amid the prediction that a drop in stock prices will be inevitable immediately after the resumption of trading, Osstem Implant announced a plan to buy back 30 billion won worth of treasury stock to defend the stock.
The Korea Exchange announced on the 27th that it had decided to maintain Osstem Implant’s listing after undergoing deliberation by the Corporate Review Committee. Accordingly, the stock trading of Osstem Implant will resume immediately from the 28th, the next trading day.
The decision of the judiciary was in line with the prospects of the stock market, who saw a high possibility of resuming trading. This is because the company has come up with measures to improve management transparency and has been showing good results recently. Osstem Implant announced through an interim earnings announcement the day before that it achieved the highest quarterly performance in the first quarter of this year with operating profit of 51.2 billion won and sales of 234.1 billion won. In addition, at the general shareholders’ meeting held on the 31st of last month, it was decided to establish an outside director recommendation committee, appoint a majority of outside directors within the board of directors, introduce an audit committee, establish an ethics management committee, and designate a compliance officer.
Earlier, Osstem Implant announced on January 3 that it had sued Lee, a money management employee, on charges of embezzlement on the job. The exchange discussed whether to maintain the listing at the committee held on the 29th of last month, but could not reach a conclusion.
Minority shareholders, who suffered damage from the suspension of the Osstem Implant transaction, sighed. However, in the process of reflecting the stock market decline in the past, a short-term share price decline is unavoidable. On December 30, last year, just before the suspension of trading, Osstem Implant’s closing price was 142,700 won, and its market cap was 2.38 trillion won, ranking 16th in the KOSDAQ market cap. As of the end of last year, there were 42,964 minority shareholders of Osstem Implant, holding 62.2% (888,894 shares) of the total issued stock.
Meanwhile, Osstem Implant held an emergency board meeting on the same day and decided to buy back 30 billion won worth of stock. Osstem Implant CEO Uhm Tae-gwan said in a statement, “We have decided to buy back our stock to protect shareholders and enhance shareholder value.”
Reporter Kim Hee-ri
