(LEAD) POSCO chief offers to quit

All News 12:02 April 18, 2018

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with chairman's comments; CHANGES headline)
By Kim Kwang-tae

SEOUL, April 18 (Yonhap) -- The head of South Korean steelmaker POSCO on Wednesday offered to step down to make way for a new leader as the company braces for changes.

Kwon Oh-joon, who has been leading the steelmaker since March 2014, made the announcement during a board meeting with the company's top management accepting Kwon's decision.

"I thought that it would be good to hand over the company's management to a more energetic, competent and younger person than me," Kwon told reporters after the closed-door board meeting.

Kwon will remain in his post until a new chairman is picked.

The abrupt announcement came two years before Kwon's second three-year term is set to expire.

Last year, Kwon was excluded from a list of business executives who accompanied President Moon Jae-in on his trip to the United States, sparking speculation that Kwon could follow in the footsteps of his predecessors who failed to serve out their terms.

Kwon was also not part of the business delegation that followed Moon on trips to Indonesia and China in 2017.

POSCO was a state-run company before being privatized in 2000.

Currently, the South Korean government has no stake in POSCO and South Korea's national pension fund, the world's third-largest, with 622 trillion won (US$582 billion) in assets, is the largest shareholder by owning 10.79 percent of POSCO stakes.

Still, POSCO's former chairmen have been replaced whenever a new administration takes office.

In 2014, then-POSCO chairman Chung Joon-yang was replaced by Kwon Oh-joon about 16 months before Chung's term was set to expire. Chung had not been invited to key events attended by then-President Park Geun-hye.

Chung's predecessor, Lee Ku-taek, resigned in 2009 one year after the inauguration of then-President Lee Myung-bak.

The world's fifth-biggest steelmaker by output saw its net profit nearly triple in 2017 from a year earlier on equity gains from affiliates.

For the whole of 2017, net profit soared to 2.974 trillion won (US$2.78 billion) from 1.048 trillion won a year earlier. Operating profit jumped 63 percent on-year to 4.622 trillion won last year from 2.844 trillion won a year ago.