This article was posted on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 10:22 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2025.
Korea Refractories, a KOSPI-listed company, exchanged all of its treasury shares for shares of Hantech held by its parent company FOOSUNG Co. With a bill to require the cancellation of all treasury shares under the Commercial Act likely to be processed soon, the company strengthened a holding company–centered governance structure using treasury shares before that happens. This is also related to succession issues within the FOOSUNG Group.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service electronic disclosure system on the 4th, Korea Refractories exchanged 5,629,960 treasury shares on the 1st for 346,267 Hantech shares held by FOOSUNG Co. The exchange price for Korea Refractories shares was 2,085 won, the same as the closing price on the 1st. Stocks worth a total of 14 billion won were exchanged.
The FOOSUNG Group has four listed companies, including FOOSUNG Co., Korea Refractories and Hantech, plus FIRSTEC, and 24 unlisted companies. The owner family, including FOOSUNG Group chairman Kim Geun-soo and vice chairman Kim Yong-min, control the four listed companies in their personal names, while the holding company-level FOOSUNG Holdings (formerly FOOSUNG HDS) mainly holds stakes in unlisted companies.
Listed companies within the FOOSUNG Group have recently been disposing of treasury shares one after another. LAST month, FIRSTEC sold 177,101 treasury shares to FOOSUNG Holdings. FOOSUNG Co. also transferred a small amount, 94 treasury shares, to FOOSUNG Holdings.
Through this, dormant voting rights attached to treasury shares were revived, and FOOSUNG Holdings was able to slightly strengthen its control over affiliates. Earlier, in August, the FOOSUNG shares held by the unlisted company Ilgwang E&C were sold to FOOSUNG Holdings.
Until now, the FOOSUNG Group has maintained a structure in which the owner family directly holds stakes in the main listed affiliates rather than concentrating them in the holding company-level FOOSUNG Holdings.
In FOOSUNG Co., Vice Chairman Kim Yong-min (20.85%) and Chairman Kim Geun-soo (11.69%) together hold 32% of the shares, while FOOSUNG Holdings holds only 11.33%. At Korea Refractories, the Kim chairman family's stake (25.4%) is higher than FOOSUNG Holdings' stake (15.94%). In FIRSTEC, the Kim chairman family's stake is 43.99%, while FOOSUNG Holdings holds only 0.3%. FOOSUNG Holdings holds no stake in Hantech. Across the group, the owner family's control is solid, but the influence of FOOSUNG Holdings, which should function as the holding company, is relatively small.
Some observers expect FOOSUNG Holdings to gain more weight starting with the recent series of treasury share disposals carried out by the group. An accountant said, "If succession is carried out through an unlisted holding company, the valuation method differs from that of listed shares, which can effectively reduce inheritance and gift tax," and noted, "There have been several cases of strengthening the holding company structure ahead of succession."