Young Poong and MBK Partners welcomed the recent resignation of four outside directors at Korea Zinc who had been suspended from their duties for the past year and a half, calling it "part of the governance normalization process." The directors had been appointed last year under the leadership of Chairman Choi Yun-birm, but a court suspended their duties after raising questions about the legitimacy of the shareholders' meeting at the time. The Young Poong–MBK consortium is Korea Zinc's largest shareholder.
On Tuesday, Young Poong and MBK said, "All four directors who resigned had been suspended from their duties by the court due to legal flaws in the extraordinary shareholders' meeting held last January." They added, "It is not insignificant that some of the defects caused by the past unlawful infringement of shareholder rights have, albeit belatedly, been corrected through these resignations." Korea Zinc disclosed the previous day that the four outside directors had voluntarily resigned for personal reasons.
The directors had been appointed at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting in January last year. On the day before that meeting, Chairman Choi and his side transferred a 10.3% stake in Young Poong, held jointly with relatives, to SMC, Korea Zinc's Australian affiliate, forming an offshore circular shareholding and cross-shareholding structure that restricted the voting rights of Young Poong, the largest shareholder. Young Poong, viewing the meeting as legally flawed, filed an injunction to suspend the directors from performing their duties, and the court granted the request, barring the four directors from carrying out their roles.
With the resignation of the four outside directors, the total number of Korea Zinc board members has decreased from 19 to 15. The Korea Zinc board currently consists of three inside directors, three other non-executive directors, and nine outside directors.
A Young Poong–MBK official said, "The Young Poong–MBK consortium will treat this matter as another milestone in normalizing Korea Zinc's damaged governance." The official added, "We will continue to fulfill our responsibilities without wavering to improve transparent corporate governance and enhance shareholder value."
