Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- At a sanitized convention center backed by a medical team and ambulances, Samsung Electronics went ahead with a general meeting of stockholders with top executives speaking behind a transparent barrier on the podium to preclude the inflow of a new coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic.

Hundreds of shareholders wearing masks were placed in designated seats in the 1,500-seat meeting hall, compared with 1,000 people who packed the previous year's meeting at a smaller place. Samsung operated a provisional medical center manned by doctors and nurses.

Shareholders were allowed to enter after disinfecting their hands with sanitizers and walking through a checkpoint installed with non-contact thermometers and thermal imaging cameras. Space for shareholders was freed up to reduce contact. Mikes for shareholder remarks used disposable sanitary covers.

  The meeting in the southern city of Suwon ended quickly in about two hours because Samsung introduced an electronic voting system for the first time.

For regular shareholders' meetings, Samsung and other big companies have adopted an electronic voting system to prevent infections. The system was introduced in 2010 to help minority shareholders exercise their voting rights, but its utilization rate is still low because many shareholders favor computers or smartphones.

According to the Korea Securities Depository, a post-trade service provider, 113,000 out of 9.99 million eligible shareholders used electronic voting in 2019. Samsung's meeting on March 18 signals the greater use of the system this year.