English translation of the original Korean report. Images and source documents may contain Korean text.

Kim Joong-hyun CEO’s salary last year 29 billion 6776 million won, exceeds annual donations… Meritz Financial Group’s share buyback of 1 trillion 2000 billion won planned

Meritz Fire (CEO Kim Joong-hyun) recorded more than 1 trillion won in net profit in the first half of this year, but social contribution donations were the lowest among the top 5 general insurance companies in the country.

Last year, annual donations remained the lowest in the industry, while Kim Joong-hyun CEO’s personal salary exceeded the company’s total donations, drawing attention to the difference between management performance and the scale of social return.

According to the insurance industry’s management disclosure and Meritz Financial Group’s performance data, Meritz Fire’s first-half net profit for this year was 1.0243 trillion won, an increase of 3.76% compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, social contribution donations decreased by 2.375 billion won (31.17%) from 7.62 billion won in the same period last year to 5.245 billion won.

During the same period, Hyundai Marine had 85.7 billion won, KB Insurance 41.78 billion won, Samsung Fire 41.51 billion won, and DB Insurance 39.8 billion won.

Meritz Fire was the only one among the five companies with donations below 1 billion won, and the proportion of donations to net profit was also the lowest at 0.05%.

The increase in Meritz Fire’s net profit was influenced by the improvement in investment performance.

This year’s insurance profit and loss was 697.5 billion won, a 3.7% decrease compared to the same period last year, but investment profit and loss increased by 16.3% to 703.1 billion won, surpassing insurance profit and loss.

The first-half consolidated net profit of Meritz Financial Group, the parent company, also increased by 8.3% to 1.4716 trillion won.

While the profitability of insurance operations slowed down, the profit growth continued through the expansion of investment income, while social contribution donations decreased.

■ The CEO’s salary was 10.876 billion won more than the annual donations… Expansion of shareholder returns by the holding company

According to the executive salary data based on the 2025 business report, Kim Joong-hyun, CEO of Meritz Fire, received a total of 29.6776 billion won, including 4.976 billion won in salary and 24.5 billion won in bonuses last year.

In the same year, Meritz Fire’s annual social contribution donations were 19.59 billion won, a 13.62% decrease from 22.68 billion won the previous year, and was the lowest among the top 5 general insurance companies.

In effect, the annual salary of Kim, the CEO, was 10.876 billion won more than the company’s total donations. Although salaries and donations have different purposes, they are indicators that can compare the scale of performance rewards for management and social contribution expenditures.

Meritz Financial Group is also expanding its shareholder return policy.

On August 28, the company completed the purchase of a 70 billion won self-stock acquisition trust agreement, early termination, and on the same day, signed a new 50 billion won trust agreement.

The total scale of the share buyback trust agreements initiated this year is 1.2 trillion won, and the company plans to cancel the acquired shares.

However, this is a shareholder return at the holding company level, and the execution subject and purpose differ from Meritz Fire’s donations, which is a subsidiary.

Meritz Fire has stated that social contribution donations and employee volunteer activities are concentrated in the second half, but the final execution scale this year is of interest, as last year’s annual donations were also the lowest in the industry.