Dentium Faces Management Dispute Lawsuit, Align Partners Requests Review of Shareholders' Meeting

Image Source: Korean Enterprise Disclosure System Official Website

DentalGoodNews | On March 19, 2026, dental implant company Dentium Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dentium") announced that the plaintiff, the Korean activist fund Align Partners Asset Management (hereinafter referred to as "Align Partners") and its affiliates have filed a lawsuit with the Suwon District Court, requesting the appointment of an inspector to investigate the legality of the annual general meeting of shareholders scheduled for March 31.

The announcement indicated that the case number for this lawsuit is 2026비합10032. The matters the plaintiff applied to verify include the compliance of the convening procedures and resolution methods for this shareholders' meeting. Dentium stated that it has prepared to take responsive measures through legal representatives in accordance with procedures and will make timely announcements after subsequent facts are determined.

Align Partners disclosed on March 18, 2026, that through continuous private shareholder engagement, it had pushed Dentium to complete the full cancellation of its treasury shares. However, related corporate governance issues remain unresolved, and it issued voting recommendations for the proposals of the regular general meeting of shareholders to be held on March 31.

According to its disclosure, Align Partners sent its first private shareholder letter in June 2025, demanding that Dentium cancel all treasury shares. Dentium accepted the suggestion in August 2025, promising to complete the cancellations in batches between 2026 and 2028, but Align Partners considered the timeline too long. The process subsequently accelerated — Dentium canceled 814,980 shares (accounting for 7.36% of the total issued shares at the time) on February 6, 2026. Following the passage of the revised Korean Commercial Act on February 25, 2026 (with the core content being the obligation to cancel treasury shares), Dentium then canceled the remaining 1,629,529 shares (accounting for 15.90% of the total issued shares at the time) on March 4, thereby completing the full cancellation.

Align Partners welcomed this but pointed out that "governance issues related to internal transactions and the new hydrogen fuel cell business remain insufficiently resolved." On March 6, Align Partners applied to inspect Dentium's board meeting minutes pursuant to Article 391, Paragraph 3 of the Korean Commercial Act, covering topics such as approval of related-party transactions, investments in Vietnamese subsidiaries, and the hydrogen fuel cell business.

Furthermore, Align Partners claimed to have discovered a significant disclosure error by Dentium: its reports from the first half of 2025 to the third quarter recorded approximately KRW 20.5 billion in related-party transactions with the already dissolved affiliate Genoss Pharmacy. Dentium admitted this was a "simple recording error" and issued a correction announcement on March 13, 2026. Align Partners pointed out that an error of this magnitude remained uncorrected for about six months, indicating systemic problems in the company's accounting and information disclosure management systems.

Regarding Dentium's regular general meeting of shareholders on March 31, Align Partners supports shareholder proposals such as renaming outside directors as "independent directors" and increasing their proportion, and establishing a related-party transaction committee and a compensation and performance committee composed entirely of independent directors. It opposes management proposals that merely meet the minimum legal standards. For the election of audit committee members, Align Partners supports the shareholder-nominated candidate Yun Moo-young (with 18 years of experience at a major accounting firm) and opposes the company-nominated candidate Kim Hee-taek, believing the process of his re-nomination within one year of resignation is "hard to be convincing."

According to previous reports by DGN, Dentium recorded a rare net profit loss (-KRW 4.6 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2025, and its revenue in the Chinese market decreased by 25% year-on-year. Previously, the company revealed in its third-quarter 2025 financial report that due to weak demand and intensified competition in the Chinese and domestic Korean markets, performance continued to be under pressure. It planned to improve its operating conditions in 2026 by strengthening its localization strategy in China.