Almost half of Korean listed midsize companies headed by family members: study

[Photo by MK DB]

One out of two chief executive officers (CEOs) at listed mid-sized companies in South Korea is part of the owner family, a contrast to how the ratio is below 20 percent at the country’s top companies, data showed Wednesday.

According to an analysis on Wednesday by business data tracker CEO Score on the CEOs of 715 listed mid-sized companies in Korea as of April 7, 47.9 percent, or 470 out of the 981 CEOs were members of the owner family. The figure is 28.2 percentage points higher than 78, or 19.7 percent out of 396 CEOs at 269 large companies among the top 500 listed companies in Korea.

The analysis showed, however, that 63, or 76.8 percent out of the 82 CEOs newly appointed this year were professional managers, suggesting a shift in the overall management system at mid-sized companies.

The analysis showed that 156, or 30.5 percent of the 511 professional managers at the companies were outside officials that had been in the company for less than five years as of the CEO appointment date. The remaining 355, or 69.5 percent, were those who climbed up the ladder through internal promotions.

About 47 percent of the 156 externally-recruited CEOs were from Korea’s top five groups. Most were from Samsung Group at 28.2 percent, followed by Hyundai Motor Group at 10.9 percent, LG Group at 5.1 percent, SK Group at 1.9 percent, and Lotte Group at 0.6 percent.

In the meantime, there were only 9 female professional CEOs, including ABLE C&C Co. CEO Kim Yu-jin, Hana Tour Service Inc. CEO Song Mi-seon, MegaMD Co. CEO Lim Soo-ah, and Yes24 Corp. CEO Choi Sera, accounting for a mere 1.8 percent of the entire professional manager group. The number of female CEOs after including those from the owner family comes to 40, or 4.1 percent.

Among the CEOs in their 20s and 30s and 80s, only two were professional managers – SOCAR Inc. CEO Park Jae-woo, 38, and Jinro Distillers Co. Vice Chairman Kim Jong-sik, 85. The remaining 33 were all members of the owner family.