By appointing outside director Park Jong-su as chair of the board, LG Corp. completed a shift to outside-director board chairs at major affiliates of LG Group. With this, LG Group Chair Koo Kwang-mo will step down from the LG Corp. board chair post he has held for eight years since being named representative director and chair at an extraordinary shareholders meeting in Jun. 2018.
LG Corp., the holding company of LG Group, said on the 26th that its board approved the agenda item to appoint Park as board chair. Park is a professor at the Korea University School of Law. Park has expertise in accounting and taxes, having served as president of the Korea Taxation Association, the nation's largest academic society in the tax field, in 2022. Park joined LG Corp. as an outside director in 2023 and serves on the audit committee, ESG committee, internal transactions committee, and compensation committee.
Before LG Corp., 11 listed companies, including LG Electronics, LG Display, LG Innotek, LG Chem, LG Energy Solution, LG H&H, LG Uplus, LG HelloVision, LG CNS, and HS Ad, shifted to an outside-director chair system. Among them, three boards are chaired by women (LG Electronics, LG Innotek, LG Chem), boosting board diversity.
On the day, the LG Corp. shareholders meeting was chaired by Vice Chair Kwon Bong-seok, co-representative and chief operating officer (COO) of LG Corp. Kwon said the shift to an outside-director chair system was "to respond preemptively to market demands to strengthen the rights of minority shareholders and enhance the transparency and independence of board operations."
At the LG Corp. shareholders meeting, six items were submitted and all passed as originally proposed: approval of the 64th-term financial statements; approval of amendments to the articles of incorporation (deleting the clause excluding cumulative voting, introducing an electronic shareholders meeting system, changing the title to "independent director," strengthening voting-right restrictions when appointing or dismissing audit committee members, increasing the number of separately elected audit committee members, etc.); appointment of new directors; appointment of directors who will serve as audit committee members; appointment of audit committee members; and approval of the limit on directors' compensation.
Former Seoul High Court Director General Judge Kim Hwan-su was newly appointed as an outside director and an audit committee Commissioner. Park Jong-su, a Korea University professor whose term expired this time, was separately appointed as an outside director who will serve as an audit committee Commissioner.
LG Corp. also confirmed a cash dividend of 2,100 won per common share and 2,150 won per preferred share. LG Corp. conducted its first interim dividend (1,000 won per share) in September last year. Accordingly, to enhance shareholder value, the annual dividend per share will be maintained at the same amount as the previous year (3,100 won per common share and 3,150 won per preferred share) despite a decline in net income, meeting the separate taxation requirements for dividend income from high-dividend companies.