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The New York billionaire Carl Icahn has recommended three candidates as outside directors for Korea¡¯s biggest tobacco company KT&G as part of a bid to seize control of the firm. With that, the stage is set for the showdown at a shareholder meeting in March.
KT&G said Tuesday it will appoint altogether six new directors, four of them audit directors, at the general shareholder meeting at its headquarters in Seoul.
Icahn has nominated no audit directors, so the KT&G nominees will be subject to a simple yes-or-no vote. But the three candidates nominated by Icahn will be up against two nominated by KT&G for the two outside directorships.
The vote will determine who wins in the standoff between the company and Icahn, whose offshore fund has a reputation for urging Draconian measures on companies to boost shareholder value.
KT&G¡¯s candidates are Aekyung CEO Ahn Yong-chan (47) and Daehan Investment and Securities adviser Kim Byeong-gyun (60).
Icahn¡¯s candidates are his partner in the bid and head of Steel Partners Warren Lichtenstein, Steven Wolosky, a New York-based attorney, and Howard Lorber, the CEO of Vector Group.
KT&G looks to have the upper hand so far as it has backing in 20 percent of shareholdings made up of treasury stocks (5.75 percent), Industrial Bank of Korea¡¯s 5.85 percent stake and other domestic institutional investors, compared to Icahn¡¯s 6.59 percent.
But an analyst said the foreign investors who own 62 percent of shares may feel that voting for Icahn¡¯s nominees is a better bet to boost stock prices. ¡°It¡¯s hard to be confident that KT&G¡¯s nominees will take both outside directorships since Icahn could take advantage of his network to ensure that small foreign shareholders¡¯ votes are concentrated on one of his nominees so that at least one of them gets on the board,¡± he said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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