SEOUL, March 14 (Reuters) - South Korea will consider beefing up its corporate reform plan, aimed at boosting shareholder returns and stock prices, the financial regulator said on Thursday, after initial proposals fell short of market expectations.
The plan, announced in February and dubbed the "Corporate Value-up Programme", seeks to correct a tendency for listed South Korean companies to have lower valuations than global peers due to factors such as low dividend payouts and the dominance of opaque conglomerates known as chaebols. But some asset mangers and analysts have said the proposals don't go far enough as they lack compulsory requirements or tax benefits.
Kim So-young, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said that regulators now planned to speed up the schedule for the reform, initially set for by the end of the first half of this year, and would add measures including possible tax benefits.
"We will do our best to announce and implement before the previously planned schedule, as the market's expectations are high," Kim said.
"Meanwhile, the government is actively considering tax support measures and plans to announce them as soon as they are prepared," he said.
He was speaking during a meeting with domestic institutional investors, including the country's pension fund, National Pension Service (NPS), as they discussed revisions to stewardship guidelines and developing a new index to make the reform plan more effective.
At a separate media event on Thursday, the NPS, the world's third-largest public pension fund, said it supports the direction of the government's plan to boost the value of Seoul-listed companies and will make an investment decision regarding it after details of the reform plan are available.
South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service met with asset management firms on Thursday and urged them to cast votes in ways that boost investor returns and corporate value at annual shareholder meetings in March.
Reporting by Jihoon Lee Editing by Ed Davies and Susan Fenton
Source: Reuters