Samsung Electronics Opens Shareholder Register as Retail Investors Revolt Over $430,000 Bonuses

Samsung Electronics Accepts Shareholder Register Inspection Request

Retail Investors Seek to Rally 1.5% Stake

Union Voting Turnout Tops 80%

Samsung Electronics Co. has accepted a request from retail shareholders to inspect and copy its shareholder register. The decision comes as a shareholder group pushes back against a tentative labor-management agreement over special bonuses in the chip division. After obtaining the register, the group plans to rally support from other investors and pursue steps including a demand for an extraordinary shareholder meeting.

Act, a platform for retail shareholders, said on May 23 that Samsung Electronics had accepted the request to inspect and copy the shareholder register. The request was filed by Min Kyung-kwon, head of the Korea Shareholder Activism Headquarters, at the urging of Samsung Electronics retail investors gathered on the platform.

The request was sent to Samsung Electronics on May 20. The company replied on May 22, accepting it two days later. The inspection is scheduled for the afternoon of May 27 or on May 28 at Samsung Electronics' headquarters in Seoul's Seocho district. The shareholder register is a legally required ledger containing shareholders' names, addresses and shareholdings. Companies use it to verify eligibility to attend shareholder meetings and exercise voting rights, and to determine who qualifies for dividends.

The right to inspect and copy a shareholder register is granted to shareholders under South Korea's Commercial Act. Article 396 allows shareholders and corporate creditors to request access to company books, including the shareholder register, during business hours. For retail investors, the register can serve as a starting point for identifying other holders and asking them to join collective action. Samsung Electronics' decision to approve the request just two days after receiving it was viewed by some market participants as an unusually swift response.

Stake Rally to Begin After Register Review

The Korea Shareholder Activism Headquarters plans to send a formal letter asking other investors to join the exercise of shareholder rights as soon as it completes its review of the register. The targets include domestic and overseas institutional investors and individual shareholders holding at least 6,735 Samsung Electronics shares. That stake equals about 0.0001% of the company's outstanding shares.

The group is aiming to rally a 1.5% stake. Under the current Commercial Act, shareholders who have held stock for at least six months can demand an extraordinary shareholder meeting if they collectively own at least 1.5% of outstanding shares.

The move comes amid controversy over a bonus agreement between Samsung Electronics and its labor union. The two sides recently drew up a tentative 2026 wage and collective bargaining agreement. It includes the creation of a special management performance bonus for the Device Solutions, or DS, division, which oversees semiconductors.

Samsung Electronics and the union agreed to keep the existing over-profit incentive, or OPI, program while adding a new special management performance bonus for the DS division. The 10.5% funding pool for the special bonus will be calculated based on operating profit after subtracting labor costs such as OPI provisions.

Estimates had previously circulated that employees in the memory business could receive performance bonuses of as much as about $430,000 per person under the tentative agreement. That fueled debate over how the bonuses would be allocated and whether the funding would come at the expense of shareholder returns.

'Shareholders Are Not Employees' Enemy'

The shareholder group argues that the bonus agreement between Samsung Electronics and the union should be addressed at a shareholder meeting. At a news conference on May 22 in front of the Supreme Court in Seoul's Seocho district, the group said: "We earnestly appeal to Samsung's 125,000 employees, whether they are union members or not. Shareholders are not employees' enemy."

The group says management's profit-allocation plan should be put on the agenda for a shareholder meeting. "If a profit-allocation plan is approved by shareholder vote, employees at any company in Korea would receive a level of active support from shareholders that no one has seen before," it said.

The group is demanding a shareholder vote because it views the bonus provisions in the labor-management agreement not as a simple issue of wages and working conditions, but as a method of distributing corporate performance.

"Wages are an area where labor and management can agree on the amount and calculation method in return for work provided, but the authority to dispose of a company's performance belongs exclusively to the shareholder meeting under the Commercial Act," the group said.

The group also raised objections to the formula used to calculate the bonuses. It argues that basing the payout on pre-tax profit, and tying operating profit and bonuses together without shareholder approval, could infringe on shareholder rights.

On May 22, the group held a rally near the home of Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee and said it would seek an injunction to suspend the effectiveness of the labor-management agreement and file a suit to confirm its invalidity. On May 23, it also staged a counter-rally near Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek campus in response to a union gathering there.

"We have no intention of confronting labor unions at individual companies," the group said. "What we seek is not conflict but cooperation. Our goal is to create a forum where employees and shareholders can work together to design a better future for the company."

Union Vote Tops 80%

Separately from the shareholder campaign, union members are voting on whether to approve the tentative agreement. According to the Samsung Electronics chapter of the Samsung Group Enterprise Union, 45,914 members had cast ballots as of 5:13 p.m. on May 23. That put turnout at 80.14% based on a total electorate of 57,290.

The vote asks members whether they will accept the tentative 2026 wage and collective bargaining agreement reached by Samsung Electronics and the union. Voting runs until 10 a.m. on May 27. For the agreement to pass, more than half of eligible voters must take part and a majority of those who vote must support it.

As of 2 p.m. on May 21, when the voter roll closed, the enterprise union had 70,850 members. The total electorate of 57,290 is about 13,560 fewer than total membership. Under union rules, members who have failed to pay dues for more than one consecutive month do not have voting rights.

According to people inside and outside the union, the enterprise union includes more than 24,000 members in the memory business, more than 17,000 in non-memory operations and about 22,000 in common divisions. The Device Experience, or DX, division, which handles mobile and consumer electronics, accounts for 7,000 to 8,000 members, they said.

The result is expected to begin taking shape after 10 a.m. on May 27. With the shareholder register inspection also scheduled for the same week, moves by both the union and shareholders over Samsung Electronics' bonus agreement are continuing at the same time.

Hong Min-seong, Hankyung.com reporter mshong@hankyung.com