The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) has approved the corporate split of Hyundai Home Shopping's investment business division and the establishment of a holding company. However, the commission attached five approval conditions to ensure the stability of the home shopping business, management transparency, and protection for partners.

The KCC announced on the 13th that it held the "49th General Meeting of 2026" and voted to approve the change application for the corporate split of Hyundai Home Shopping—a program provider for merchandising broadcasting—while imposing specific conditions.

According to the split plan, Hyundai Home Shopping will spin off its investment business division to establish a tentative entity called "Hyundai Home Shopping Holdings." The surviving entity will retain the home shopping business, while the newly established entity will inherit the shares of affiliated companies currently held.

The KCC formed a 7-member expert review committee chaired by Commissioner Choi Soo-young, which conducted evaluations from the 4th to the 6th. Although the committee evaluated all review items as qualified, it suggested the need for safeguards against concerns over reduced management transparency resulting from Hyundai Home Shopping's transition to an unlisted company, potential capital outflows, and the management of assets to be allocated to the new investment company.

Consequently, the KCC mandated that the proportion of outside directors within the board be maintained at or above the level at the time of application to secure management monitoring functions and independence. A condition was also imposed to submit relevant matters to the KCC to verify the adequacy of dividends and transactions with specially related parties.

In addition, the joint and several liability of both the surviving and new entities for pre-split debts must be maintained. The newly established investment company is also required to submit a letter of commitment to secure the execution of a KRW 50 billion responsible management fund, which was pledged to respond to the stable operation and financial needs of the home shopping business.

Furthermore, the execution rate of the partner co-existence fund and the number of supported companies must be maintained at or above the levels at the time of application.

KCC Chairman Kim Jong-chul emphasized, "This review focused on the impact of the corporate split on the stability and continuity of the broadcasting business, and we have imposed necessary conditions to prevent any disruptions. Hyundai Home Shopping must faithfully fulfill these approval conditions and shoulder its responsibilities toward viewers, suppliers, and other stakeholders."

On the same day, the KCC also announced improvements to the operation system for evaluating telecommunications business operators' user protection tasks.

The KCC decided to improve the operation method of the system to expand the scope of user protection evaluations, enhance predictability for operators, and strengthen proactive user protection capabilities.

The core of this improvement plan is to set operators with a certain scale of users as the scope of evaluation, and to disclose the evaluation scope and items in advance prior to the evaluation period to increase predictability for operators.

In addition, the pilot evaluation system will be abolished, and some operators included in the evaluation scope will be selected as final evaluation targets, with the results being made public.

The improvement plan will be applied starting from the evaluation of the 2027 target period. The KCC plans to hold an explanatory session for operators early next year to share the target businesses and detailed contents before conducting the evaluations.

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]