Seegene's minority shareholders, angered by the continued fall of the company's stock price, are taking collective action, calling for the resignation of the founder and CEO Chun Jong-yoon.

Seegene, the maker of Covid-19 PCR test devices, benefited greatly from the Covid-19 pandemic. While the company's stock price hovered around the 20,000 won ($15.43) range before the Covid-19 pandemic, it began to surge after February 2020, when the first Covid-19 case was confirmed in Korea.

At one point, the company's shares soared as high as 322,000 won and jumped to the second largest on Kosdaq in August 2020 from the 223rd ranking in January 2020.

The company generated huge profits by selling Covid-19 diagnostic kits. The company's revenue surged 11.2 times in two years, from 122 billion won in 2019 to 1.37 trillion won in 2021. Its operating income also shot up 29.8 times, from 22.4 billion won to 666.7 billion won.

However, as countries around the world loosened their Covid-19 control policies, the company's stock price began to plummet along with its revenue.

Last year, on a consolidated basis, sales fell 37.7 percent from 2021 to 853.4 billion won, and operating profit and net profit also plunged 70.6 percent and 66.5 percent to 195.9 billion won and 180 billion won.

In the first quarter of this year, the company's sales continued to plunge after reporting sales and operating profit of 90.1 billion won and 2.1 billion, down 80.1 percent and 98.8 percent from the same period in 2022.

As a result of poor business performance, Seegene's stock price even dropped below the pre-Covid-19 level of 20,000 won and closed at 19,430 won last Friday.

Retail shareholders' mounting criticism prompted protests to shift from online to the company's headquarters in southern Seoul.

Most recently, the Seegene Minority Shareholders Association held a rally in front of the company's headquarters in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Monday, urging the company to increase shareholder value, and demanding that it buy back its own shares with the cash it has accumulated and then retire them.

The association also demanded CEO Chun step down.

Minority shareholders highlighted Seegene's substantial cash assets and criticized the company for its inactive utilization, calling for measures to enhance shareholder value.

As of the end of March this year, Seegene had 270.1 billion won in cash and cash equivalents. It also had 845.2 billion won in liquid capital, including 197.9 billion won in short-term financial instruments.

This is more than six times larger than before the outbreak of Covid-19. At that time, the company had cash and cash equivalents of 49.1 billion won and 138.5 billion won in liquid capital.

Minority shareholders also argue that Seegene is only filling the pockets of CEO Chun and his family with its high dividend policy.

From 2020 to 2022, the company dished out a total dividend of 131.1 billion won, of which 40 billion won went to the owner's family alone, including related parties.

Minority shareholders also demanded transparent communication from the company and asked for a shareholder meeting.

Seegene had previously scheduled a shareholder meeting for June, but had postponed it to July and changed the format from offline to online.

"I am curious as to why an investor relation (IR) briefing for institutional investors will be held in-person two days before the shareholders' meeting, and shareholders meeting is held in an online format," a shareholder said in an online forum. "It seems that the company is avoiding its shareholders who have stood by the company during these harsh times."

Seegene was unavailable for immediate comments regarding the protest.

As of 10:50 a.m., Seegene's share stood at 19,740 won, up 1.6 percent from the previous trading day.