The proportion of treasury stock held by multifunction printer maker Sindoh has surpassed 15% of shares outstanding. Treasury shares carry no voting rights, so they do not immediately affect control, but they can be used by selling to a friendly third party or handing them to a strategic investor. Although the third-generation succession process is effectively complete, it is seen as a move to bolster management stability in preparation for variables that could arise during the remaining equity transfer and generational change.
On the 16th, according to the electronic disclosure system, Sindoh signed a treasury share acquisition trust agreement with Samsung Securities and secured shares through partitioning purchases. Sindoh acquired 70,000 common shares on the market from Oct. to Nov. last year. Sindoh's treasury stock holdings stand at 1,527,250 shares, with the ratio to shares outstanding increasing from 14.46% to 15.15%.
Sindoh has effectively completed the third-generation succession process. The largest shareholder of Sindoh is Sindoh SDR, which engages in telecommunications device retail and real estate leasing. Sindoh SDR holds 22.63% of Sindoh's shares. The largest shareholder of Sindoh SDR is Sindoh System.
Chairman Woo Seok-hyung (71) of Sindoh is the eldest son of founder Woo Sang-ki and a second-generation member of the owner family. Among Woo's one son and two daughters, the eldest son, Executive Vice President Woo Seung-hyeop, is the founder Woo Sang-ki's grandson and a third-generation manager who is the largest shareholder of Sindoh System.
Executive Vice President Woo holds about 50% of Sindoh System's shares, securing control that flows from Sindoh System to Sindoh SDR to Sindoh. Chairman Woo holds 11.78% equity in Sindoh.
Born in 1994, Executive Vice President Woo earned a master's degree in finance from Washington University in St. Louis. He joined Sindoh in 2022 and was promoted from senior vice president to executive vice president in 2024. Sindoh System, which sits at the apex of Sindoh's governance structure and where Executive Vice President Woo is the largest shareholder, was founded in 1988 and has sales of only about 5.4 billion won in 2024.
It pursued various businesses such as copier rentals and building education infrastructure, but all have now been halted. Operating revenue is mostly dividend income and equity-method gains on affiliates. Equity-method gains refer to accounting income that recognizes as "my profit" the portion of a company's earnings corresponding to one's equity ratio while holding equity in that company.
Since Executive Vice President Woo joined, Sindoh's sales have swung widely. Consolidation-based sales were about 382.2 billion won in 2022 and topped 400 billion won the following year, but fell to around 340.9 billion won in 2024. Net income surged from about 45 billion won in 2022 to 73.1 billion won in 2024, but the increase was driven more by financial revenue than by improvements in the core business. In the same year, financial revenue rose to about 79.6 billion won, and net profit increased as higher financial revenue coincided with foreign exchange translation gains from exchange rate movements.
The market assesses that Sindoh is focusing on stabilizing control and managing assets by pairing investments with, rather than expanding, its core business. Sindoh sold domestic and overseas plant sites and office buildings in 2021–2022, but spent 121.8 billion won and 220 billion won to purchase a commercial building in Tokyo, Japan, and land in Seongsu-dong, respectively. The number of employees fell from 722 at the end of 2019 to 285 at the end of 2024.
Chairman Woo's children are also keeping a distance from the core business, focusing on management consulting. Bizdium, run by Executive Vice Presidents Woo Ji-won of Sindoh and Woo Seung-hyeop, engages in management consulting and real estate leasing. Last year, it designated management consulting as its core business and increased staff in charge of investments in corporations.
Some cite "illicit succession" as the reason Sindoh is not focusing on its core business. Although third-generation succession has been arranged in terms of governance, there remains the burden of inheritance and gift tax when transferring Chairman Woo's equity in the future. For listed companies like Sindoh, taxes on inheritance or gifts are assessed based on the average closing price over the four months covering the two months before and after the valuation date, so the lower the share price, the lower the tax burden.
Lawmaker Lee So-young of the Democratic Party of Korea pointed out Sindoh's low market capitalization relative to its asset value during last year's National Assembly audit. Lee said, "In the market, suspicions are being raised that this may be an artificial adjustment with an eye toward succession or tax savings."
A corporate advisory attorney said, "Recently, many in the third generation are more interested in areas that require relatively less capital input and allow greater discretion in decision-making and fund management, rather than directly growing existing businesses." The attorney added, "Multifunction printer manufacturing, sales, and leasing is not a growth industry, and performance can translate into stock price assessments or accountability, so the third generation chose areas that can generate greater revenue with less performance volatility while keeping the existing business as is."