이 기사는 2022년 01월 05일 08:06 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

SK Shieldus, the security device making subsidiary of South Korea’s largest wireless carrier SK Telecom, has abolished the existing audit system and established the new outside director system in a bid to enhance its ESG (environment, social, governance) management ahead of its planned initial public offering (IPO) later this year.

SK Shieldus recently said that it hired four outside directors and audit committee members on December 13. Kim Jin-won, who was previously in charge of audit, resigned on the same day. The company has introduced the outside director and audit committee system and abolished the existing system.

Many of SK Shieldus’ inside directors and non-executive directors also resigned, including SK Shieldus business manager Lee Yong-hwan, SK Square senior managing director Yoon Poong-young, and Lee Su-jin and James Hooke nominated by financial investor Macquarie Infrastructure.

The move is in line with SK Shieldus’ planned IPO. SK Shieldus reportedly plans to file a preliminary application for its listing early this year. Under the Commercial Act, listed companies with total assets of 2 trillion won ($1.67 billion) or more are required to fill the majority of the board of directors with outside directors.

SK Shieldus needs to hire outside directors to go public given that it had total assets of 3.17 trillion won at the end of September 2021 on a non-consolidated basis. At the same time, the number of existing board members has to be reduced because outside directors account for less than half of the total.

This is in sharp contrast to SK Telecom’s affiliate SK Broadband, which was delisted as it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the mobile carrier in 2015. The company could abolish its outside director system immediately, but it kept the system for a while.

It was only last year that SK Broadband introduced the audit system and abolished the audit committee and outside director system.

SK Shieldus, which is preparing for its IPO, has reorganized its governance to comply with the laws. It is also seen as a move to strengthen ESG management by utilizing the independence and expertise of the board of directors.

“We have hired outside directors with independence and expertise in order to strengthen ESG management as we pursue the board-centered corporate management,” an official at SK Shieldus said.

The newly hired outside directors have their expertise in IPOs and information protection. Kim Jong-il, a professor of business administration at the Catholic University of Korea, is an accounting expert who has been researching corporate value evaluation. He had worked at Deloitte Anjin and EY HanYoung.

Yoon Hye-sun, a professor at Hanyang University Law School, had worked at local law firm Yulchon. She is a licensed attorney in New York, US, and Ontario, Canada.

Kim Beom-soo is a professor of Graduate School of Information at Yonsei University. With a focus on digital management and ICT information protection, he is researching blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and fintech.

Kang Hyun-jeong is an attorney at Kim & Chang. Her practice focuses on securities and banking regulations, fintech, e-business, and personal information protection. She received her M.B.A. from KAIST Graduate School of Finance and received her bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Seoul National University. (Reporting by Jang-jun Lee)