Listed firms pushed to make public notices in English

By Nam Hyun-woo

Samsung Electronics and other firms heavily invested in by foreign investors will be eventually required to make public notices both in Korean and English, the Korea Exchange (KRX) said Monday.

“We will come up with a list of companies that need to make public notices in English,” an official said.

The KRX will select companies based on several standards such as market capitalization, the ratio of stakes owned by foreigners and their volume of trade.

The bourse operator will encourage selected companies to make disclosures in English.

The number of target companies will likely be around 150, 20 percent of the total of 770 companies on the main bourse.

The KRX did not name which companies would be on the list, but market insiders expect big players such as Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and LG Chem to be included.

“The KRX is seeking all major companies to make public announcements both in English and Korean,” another official said. “Since those companies are leaders in the market, it will have a ripple effect.”

The KRX plans to launch the system as early as later this month.

Companies which follow the guidelines will be granted the incentive of being exempted from punishment if they are found to have accidentally made untrue Korean public notices.

They will be exempted from being designated as a company which made untruthful public announcements for three years unless they omitted a major index deliberately.

Last week, the KRX gave the exemption to seven such companies.

The KRX move comes amid the increasing number of foreign investors in the market. “To improve foreign investors’ accessibility to the market, the KRX will push more companies to make English announcements,” the official said.