SillaJen starts fresh with sole CEO, Seoul headquarters

SillaJen recently held an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to replace the CEO and change its headquarters' location.

Industry officials are paying attention to whether the results will affect the Korea Exchange (KRX)’s review of the company's possible delisting.

The meeting of shareholders took place at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Center in Seoul, Monday. Due to concerns over the spread of Covid-19, the organizers considered an online meeting but finally decided to hold it face-to-face.

At the meeting, SillaJen appointed Vice President Joo Sang-eun as the sole CEO. Joo previously served as GSK’s business development and strategic marketing director and Leo Pharma CEO.

The company also appointed three new outside directors and dismissed executive director Lee Kwon-hee whom the company had initially tried to appoint as co-CEO.

The company also changed the location of the headquarters. From Sept. 18, the Seoul branch will become the headquarters instead of the office in Busan.

SillaJen said the location change was needed to improve management efficiency and secure more workforce and research infrastructure.

According to the company, the Busan office and the research center in Pangyo in Gyeonggi Province will focus on research, and the Seoul headquarters will oversee personnel and business support.

The shareholders’ meeting also added purposes of its business. In addition to the existing purposes such as pharmaceutical R&D, intellectual property acquisition and transfer, clinical trial manufacturing, and drug import, sale, and distribution, the company widened the business purposes to financial business, including insurance and financial investment and real estate management business.

The addition aimed to enable new businesses that are either being promoted or pushed in the future, SillaJen said in a public filing.

At the general shareholders’ meeting, minority shareholders asked the company to make every effort to resume stock trading. They also voiced for the support for the new management, news reports said. As of late last year, SillaJen had 168,778 minority shareholders who owned a combined 87.68 percent stake.

Last month, the Seoul bourse operator delayed its decision whether to resume SillaJen’s stock trading. The regulator reportedly notified that it would reflect the recent results of the shareholders’ meeting in the next review.

SillaJen hoped that the meeting’s results would positively affect the upcoming assessment of the KRX. The company plans to submit a new management improvement plan to the KRX.

“The previous management improvement plan was written when the company was run by co-CEOs. As we have appointed the new CEO and outside directors, we plan to write a new plan with more new details and submit it,” an official at SillaJen said.