Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group announced its plan to implement a 'Growth Sharing Program (GSP)' for its employees.

As the first item of the GSP, which aims at enriching the employee welfare benefits, an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) will be rolled out.

HHI Group's ESPP, to be implemented on an opt-in basis, will allow participating employees to purchase shares in their company (or the parent of their company, if unlisted) with a portion of the purchase price refunded by the company.

Under the umbrella of HHI Group, there are six listed companies, including HHI Holdings, Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD), Hyundai Construction Equipment (HCE), Hyundai Electric, and Hyundai Energy Solutions (HES), as well as 10 unlisted companies, including Hyundai Oilbank.

As a pilot program, the ESPP will initially apply to the employees of three unlisted companies, namely Hyundai Oilbank, Hyundai Robotics, and Hyundai Global Service (HGS), who have not been able to acquire shares in their own company, effective for purchases made in or after October this year.
For each stock purchase made in HHI Holdings by the employees of these three subsidiaries, 10% of their purchase price will be refunded in cash if the shares are held for six months or longer.

The refundable amount per capita is capped at KRW 3 million a year, applicable for annual purchases of up to KRW 30 million in aggregate.

Starting off with these three companies, the Group plans to expand the ESPP across a broader range of companies after working on the implementation details that would work best for each company, such as roll-out timing and refund cap.

"Our GSP is about upgrading the conventional benefit-based employee welfare system to a new system under which welfare for employees leads to better corporate performance," said an official of the Group. "Based on the judgment that many of the companies within our Group are currently undervalued due to external factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to start off with the ESPP as a measure to share with our people profits that will be realized when these companies return to their appropriate levels of value."

Going forward, HHI Group intends to continuously enrich and enhance its GSP with various plans to create a 'win-win' for the companies and its people.