Doosan Group is facing growing doubts over its decision to merge Doosan Bobcat, its lucrative construction equipment unit, into its smaller robotics unit, Doosan Robotics.
Retail investors, proxy advisors and even lawmakers are expressing anger at the group’s decision because Bobcat shareholders are being forced to exchange their shares in a company whose operating profit surpassed 1.39 trillion won ($1.06 billion) last year with that of a company that piled up 19.2 billion won in operating losses during the same period.
According to Rep. Kim Hyun-jung of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), he and 16 other DPK lawmakers tabled a revision to the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act to strengthen regulations on assessing the value of companies subject to mergers and acquisitions.
“Doosan Bobcat, with annual sales nearing 10 trillion won and operating profits exceeding 1 trillion won, is being unfairly valued on par with Doosan Robotics, whose sales are only 1/183rd of Doosan Bobcat’s and which has incurred operating losses,” the lawmakers wrote in their revision proposal. “There are criticisms that this constitutes an exploitation of the current law.”
On July 11, Doosan Group announced its plan to delist Doosan Bobcat and merge it into Doosan Robotics, in an apparent strategy to 한국을 use Bobcat’s profitability as a source for the costly investments in Doosan Robotics. When this process is completed, Bobcat will be fully owned directly by Doosan’s holding firm, Doosan Corp. Doosan plans to hold shareholders meetings, of the related companies, on Sept. 25 for approvals.
As a result, each Bobcat share will be exchanged for 0.63 Robotics shares, thereby giving a higher value to Robotics’ shares. Doosan Group says it complied with the capital markets act in setting the ratio, which stipulates the exchange ratio for mergers involving listed companies should be determined based on the average values of their recent stock prices.