Successive Attacks Targeting Mother and Daughter... Hanmi Management Dispute Escalates Into Public Opinion Battle

Founding Family's Effective Voting Power Claimed at 34.4%

Gap Narrows to Just 0.7 Percentage Points—Cousins’ Choice Becomes Pivotal

Whistleblower on Youngsook Song's Corporate Card Allegations Also Holds Press Conference

The Hanmi Group management dispute is escalating from a battle over shareholdings and lawsuits into a public campaign aimed at swaying public opinion. The camp of Dongguk Shin, Chairman of Hanyang Precision, has disclosed the court's decision to provisionally seize shares owned by Juhyun Lim, Vice Chairman of Hanmi Science, claiming that there are issues regarding the actual voting rights held by the founding family. In addition, the whistleblower who raised allegations about Chairman Youngsook Song's use of a corporate credit card has made a public appearance before the media.

According to the pharmaceutical industry on August 7, Chairman Shin's camp announced the previous day through a press release that the Seoul Central District Court had approved a provisional seizure order on Hanmi Science shares worth 10 billion won owned by Vice Chairman Lim. The court’s decision was made on July 29.

The Shin camp claims Vice Chairman Lim breached his obligation to jointly exercise voting rights as stipulated in a "four-party agreement" signed with Chairman Song, Chairman Shin, and Killington LLC. Out of the 9.15% stake that Lim declared at the time, they assert that 2.7% was transacted with Equity First under a repurchase agreement, and voting rights for this stake were not exercised at the annual general meetings in both last year and this year. However, they also clarified that the provisional seizure order is a form of preservation measure that temporarily restricts asset disposition in preparation for possible compulsory execution, and does not necessarily constitute a ruling on Lim's alleged breach of the agreement.

Based on this court decision, the Shin camp argues that there is a discrepancy between the founding family's apparent share ownership and the actual voting rights that can be exercised at shareholders' meetings. They point out that 6.6% of Hanmi Science shares handed over to Equity First by Chairman Song, Vice Chairman Lim, and Jonghun Lim, CEO of Hanmi Fine Chemical, have for the most part already been sold on the market. Excluding these shares from the founding family's voting rights, the effective voting stake is estimated to be approximately 34.4%. This is just 0.7 percentage points below the Shin camp's stake of 35.1%.

However, it has not been precisely confirmed how much of the 6.6% stake transferred to Equity First has actually been sold in the open market. If stakes held by Now IB 22nd Fund, Gahyeon Cultural Foundation, and Sungki Lim Foundation are treated as friendly to the founding family, it has generally been calculated that the founding family holds 40.86%, while the Shin camp holds 35.10%.

Of particular note this time is that the Shin camp specifically mentioned the 2.7% stake held by cousin shareholders from the founding family, such as former Vice President Jongho Lim. In the 2024 management dispute, Lim and the other cousins sided against Chairman Song and Vice Chairman Lim, highlighting doubts about the mother-and-daughter team’s managerial abilities. The Shin camp emphasized this point and argued that the fate of these shares would be crucial moving forward.

If, as calculated by the Shin camp, the difference between the two sides is less than one percentage point, the choice of the cousin shareholders could determine the outcome of any future shareholder vote. Bringing these previously sidelined players back into the spotlight as potential kingmakers appears to be a strategic move to rally latent allies and encourage them to make a decision in the near future.

Coinciding with the Shin camp’s public campaign over the shareholding structure, another external front targeting the mother and daughter management team emerged. Kim Taeho, who recently reported allegations about Chairman Song's corporate credit card use to the media, held a press conference on the morning of August 7 at the Koreana Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, and explained how he acquired the documents and his motivations for whistleblowing. The announcement of this press conference was made just hours after the Shin camp’s disclosure of its position regarding the provisional seizure order to the press.

Kim, who previously worked in the secretarial office at Hanmi Pharmaceutical, is known to have contacted Chairman Shin in May. However, Kim told The Asia Business Daily that his contact was made to mediate among the parties involved in the management dispute and denied allegations that he was acting under Shin's instructions. In his statement, Kim asserted that his aim in raising suspicions of the private use of Hanmi Group’s assets and funds was not to slander any particular individual, but to help promptly resolve Hanmi's ongoing challenge of "separating ownership and management."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.