Korea Zinc to retire 240,000 treasury shares next January; revives stock-split plan

[Financial News] Korea Zinc will retire more than half of its treasury shares in January next year and revive its stock-split plan, which was suspended amid the management control dispute. With its dispute with Youngpoong Corporation and MBK Partners over the appropriateness of investments continuing, the company has decided to resume its shareholder-return policy. Revenue in the third quarter of this year rose 46.3% from a year earlier, while operating profit fell 48.2%.
Korea Zinc said it held a regular board meeting on the 4th and resolved to retire treasury shares, revive its stock-split plan and pay a third-quarter dividend.
Under the board’s decision, Korea Zinc will retire 246,665 (51.4%) of the 479,737 treasury shares it holds in January next year. The remaining 233,072 shares (48.6%) are planned to be used for employee compensation and other purposes over the next 10 years.
Korea Zinc had previously retired all the treasury shares it acquired to counter the tender offer by Youngpoong Corporation and MBK Partners in October 2024, doing so in three rounds in 2025.
Korea Zinc is also reviving its stock-split plan. It has decided to submit a related proposal to its annual shareholders’ meeting in March next year. The specific split amount and record date will be decided at a board meeting to be held before the shareholders’ meeting.
The stock split proposed by Korea Zinc was approved at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in January last year, but subsequent procedures were suspended after Youngpoong Corporation and MBK Partners filed for an injunction to suspend the meeting’s effect and brought a lawsuit on the merits, among other actions. Korea Zinc plans to revive the stock split to improve investor access and stock liquidity.
The third-quarter dividend was set at 5,000 won per share. The dividend record date is the 29th, with payment scheduled for early next month. This means the company will have paid a dividend of 5,000 won per share in each of the first three quarters of this year. The cumulative dividends for the three quarters total 305.9 billion won.
A Korea Zinc official said, “The retirement of treasury shares, revival of the stock split and stable quarterly dividends are part of a consistent policy to enhance shareholder value.”
Third-quarter consolidated revenue approved by the board that day was 6 trillion 86.1 billion won, up 46.3% from a year earlier. Operating profit, by contrast, fell 48.2% to 141.7 billion won. Revenue exceeded 6 trillion won for the third consecutive quarter, while the company recorded an operating profit for the 107th consecutive quarter.
On a standalone basis, revenue rose 40.2% from a year earlier to 3 trillion 657.3 billion won, while operating profit fell 4.6% to 224.3 billion won.
Korea Zinc said its businesses, including its Onsan Refinery in South Korea, Australia’s zinc smelter Sun Metals Corporation (SMC) and its US resource-recycling subsidiary Pedalpoint Holdings, contributed to the revenue increase. However, it said profitability was affected by lower prices for precious metals and some critical minerals, a decline in the exchange rate, and initial costs for Project Crucible, its US critical-minerals smelter construction project. Project Crucible involves investing about $7.4 billion to build a critical-minerals smelter in Tennessee, United States.
Meanwhile, Korea Zinc and Youngpoong Corporation and MBK Partners are disputing investment transactions involving a One Asia Partners fund. Youngpoong Corporation and MBK Partners said money from funds to which Korea Zinc had contributed had been invested in companies in which Chairman Choi Yun-beom and his family had already invested, and demanded a direct explanation from Choi’s side. Korea Zinc countered that this claim arbitrarily linked transactions carried out by separate legal entities.

[email protected] Kim Mi-hee Reporter