{"id":95287,"date":"2017-03-24T01:38:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T05:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=95287"},"modified":"2017-03-24T01:38:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T05:38:14","slug":"samsung-shareholders-welcome-stock-price-gains-rue-scandals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/03\/24\/samsung-shareholders-welcome-stock-price-gains-rue-scandals\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung shareholders welcome stock price gains, rue scandals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shareholders<\/a>
Shareholders of Samsung Electronics praised the company Friday for big gains in its share price while lamenting its involvement in a massive corruption scandal that brought the arrest of the company’s de facto leader. (Photo: Samsung Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of \u2014 Shareholders of Samsung Electronics praised the company Friday for big gains in its share price while lamenting its involvement in a massive corruption scandal that brought the arrest of the company’s de facto leader.<\/p>\n

Kwon Oh-hyun, Samsung’s chief executive, told an annual shareholders meeting the scandal was regrettable, but the company did nothing illegal.<\/p>\n

Five Samsung executives, including its vice chairman and founding family heir apparent Lee Jae-yong, have been indicted on bribery and other charges.<\/p>\n

The scandal resulted in the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Calls to reform Samsung and other conglomerates are gaining momentum after Samsung, Hyundai, SK, LG and other major businesses made big donations to foundations controlled by a friend of Park’s who has been charged with meddling in state affairs.<\/p>\n

Some shareholders expressed concern over growing public hostility to Samsung, South Korea’s biggest company.<\/p>\n

The company’s image has also taken a big hit from cases of overheating and sometimes exploding batteries of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smart phones. Samsung ended up discontinuing the product just weeks after it was launched in August.<\/p>\n

Shin Jong-kyun, a Samsung president, promised shareholders the company will put \u201cflawless\u201d products through extensive safety checks. The precautions would be perfect, he said.<\/p>\n

Samsung is due to unveil the Galaxy S8 smartphone next week, its first major smartphone launch since the battery fiasco.<\/p>\n

But the main focus of attention during Friday’s meeting was the scandal.<\/p>\n

Some found fault with the company’s apologies.<\/p>\n

One shareholder, who said he worked at the company for 26 years, demanded an explanation for how Samsung’s board of auditors, which included a former national chief prosecutor, could have allowed corporate funds to be misused.<\/p>\n

Kwon, the chief executive, denied Samsung did anything unlawful in making the donations to Park’s associate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a donation that was traditional and customary,\u201d Kwon said. \u201cThe auditing committee found it was executed through normal procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samsung says it will require its board of directors to approve any donations of over 1 billion won ($89 million) to prevent future scandals.<\/p>\n

A newly created committee to improve the company’s governance structure will be appointed by next month, the company said. It is still searching for a global business leader to join its board.<\/p>\n

While shareholders were shaken by the scandal and resulting damage to the company’s image, many praised the company for delivering strong results overall.<\/p>\n

Samsung stock jumped more than 60 per cent from a year ago thanks to strong performance of its semiconductor business, which offset the damage from the Note 7 battery troubles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t help rejoicing over how the value of my asset has gone up,\u201d said one shareholder surnamed Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of \u2014 Shareholders of Samsung Electronics praised the company Friday for big gains in its share price …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":95288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[17029,11264],"class_list":["post-95287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-kwon-oh-hyun","tag-samsung-electronics","mauthors-youkyung-lee","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}