Unjels investors listed on the securities market have made a shareholder proposal. They aimed to secure a 5% equity stake but first secured a lesser stake of over 3% before participating in management. This group differs from The One MTS, which previously claimed to be the single largest shareholder.
According to the financial investment industry on the 6th, Journey Long Investment secured 414,300 shares (3.14%) of Unjels as of the 3rd and sent the shareholder proposal to Unjels in the morning of the same day.
Journey Long Investment stated that it opposes the reappointment of CEO Yoo Ji-won, outside directors Oh Se-hyun and Jeong Jin, whose terms expire at Unjels’ regular shareholders' meeting in March, and will submit a proposal for the new appointment of three new directors as a shareholder proposal. They proposed Park Cheol-han and Lee Jae-hwan as internal directors, and Son Seok-bong as an outside director.
Candidate Park Cheol-han has served as the chief financial officer (CFO) of Kia Motors, Walmart Korea, and Cham Engineering, while candidate Lee Jae-hwan is a corporate executive currently at Quantus Asset Management, having previously worked at Dongbu Securities and Kyobo Securities. Candidate Son Seok-bong is currently an attorney at A-PRO.
Journey Long Investment claimed in the shareholder proposal that “Unjels recorded an operating loss in the first half of 2022, and has continuously incurred losses from 2023 to the first half of last year,” and raised “serious doubts” about whether CEO Yoo Ji-won is establishing measures to overcome this.
It added that “outside directors Oh Se-hyun and Jeong Jin did not fulfill their roles of auditing and monitoring as outside directors.”
Regarding Unjels' contribution of 170,000 treasury shares to its employee welfare fund on the 19th of last month, it said that “treasury shares are not cash, so a sale is necessary, but no sale of treasury shares has taken place so far,” adding that “this can only be interpreted as a method to transfer ownership of shares through the contribution to the employee welfare fund in order to utilize the voting rights of those shares for the reappointment of CEO Yoo.”
In addition, Journey Long Investment noted that “Unjels has not implemented dividends, a representative shareholder return policy, even once in the last five years,” and suggested putting the shareholder proposal agenda on the agenda at the regular shareholders' meeting in March.