Flashlight Capital: Owner Family Is Sucking Choco Pie Maker Orion Dry
Flashlight Capital: Owner Family Is Sucking Choco Pie Maker Orion Dry
- Owner family takes 1.7x per share what other shareholders get, with no board seats
- Cash is nearly half of market cap, yet the dividend yield is only 2.8%
- A “textbook K-discount”: a low share price cuts the owner family’s inheritance tax
- New 3% rule gives non-family shareholders over 90% of votes in audit committee elections
- The right governance can make Orion “the next Samyang (Buldak)”, with 3.3x upside
Flashlight Capital Partners Pte. Ltd. (“Flashlight Capital”), a shareholder of Orion Corp. (KRX: 271560), the maker of Choco Pie, today sent an open letter to Orion’s board with five requests, seeking a response by November 13, 2026.
Orion is Korea’s largest confectioner, with a 22% domestic share and two-thirds of sales abroad. Yet its share price has been flat since its 2017 spin-off, and it trades at 3.0x EV/EBITDA, a quarter of the global peer median (11.5x).
Flashlight Capital believes the cause is governance. The late founder’s daughter Lee Hwa-kyung (Vice Chairman) and her husband Dam Chul-gon (Chairman) have held no board seat at Orion or Orion Holdings since 2013, yet draw pay from both, outside the shareholder-approved pay cap. Counting that pay, the couple earns an effective 4.9% yield on their shares, versus 2.8% for other shareholders.
Then there is questionable M&A. When Orion announced its investment in LigaChem Biosciences in 2024, Orion’s shares fell 18% the next day. It is now reportedly bidding for JoongAng Ilbo, a newspaper in a creditor-led workout that lost KRW 92 billion in 1H 2026.
Flashlight Capital’s five requests:
- Owner family should join the board, or stop drawing pay
- Tie executive pay to the share price
- Return excess cash to shareholders
- Stop the newspaper bid
- Enter the fast-growing pet food market
The family controls 43.8% of Orion, but its votes are capped at 3% in audit committee elections.
“There is nothing wrong with Choco Pie. The problem is who’s holding the straws,” said Sanghyun Lee, Flashlight Capital’s CEO. With the right governance, Orion could become “the next Samyang”, the Buldak maker whose market value rose nearly sixfold in 2023–2025.
About Flashlight Capital
Flashlight Capital is a Singapore-based activist investment firm that has led governance campaigns at KT&G (2022, Korea), S-1 Corporation (2026, Korea) and SECOM (2026, Japan). Visit www.FlashlightCap.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261018477961/en/
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