The concentration phenomenon of shareholder meetings continues, with 73% of listed companies concentrated on specific 3 days.

This year, the shareholder meetings of listed companies on the Korean Stock Exchange were concentrated over three specific days, and the clustering of shareholder meetings continues. This indicates that despite institutional improvements to enhance operational transparency, companies still schedule their shareholder meetings closely together.

According to the Korea Listed Companies Association, about 73% of the 593 listed companies have set their shareholder meeting dates for March 24, 26, and 31. Notably, 272 companies will hold meetings on March 26. Major companies such as Hyundai Motor, SK, and Kakao are included. This clustering may make it difficult for many investors to actively exercise their voting rights.

To address this issue, the government and financial authorities have been jointly operating a voluntary compliance program for dispersing shareholder meetings with the Korea Listed Companies Association since 2018. However, the phenomenon of meeting clustering has not been eliminated. The Capital Market Research Institute emphasizes the importance of companies’ willingness. Additionally, inspired by Japan, a proposed solution is to mandatorily disclose agenda materials electronically three weeks before the shareholder meeting.

However, companies have complained that dispersing shareholder meeting schedules presents practical difficulties. In particular, due to reasons such as preparing consolidated financial statements for overseas subsidiaries, most companies explain that holding meetings at the end of March is unavoidable. Furthermore, this schedule also reflects various constraints such as executive travel.

In this context, although the Commercial Act was revised in 2020 to allow shareholder meetings in April, companies feel the burden of “having to complete shareholder meetings within the first quarter to smoothly carry out next year’s business.” Moving forward, more proactive systems and voluntary corporate participation seem necessary to disperse shareholder meeting schedules.