Samsung will use its $56 billion cash pile to fund a growth plan that would involve mergers and acquisitions. In the meantime, the company's shareholders are seeking much bigger dividends.
In 2014, the company's profit declined for the first time in three years after it was challenged by the release of the iPhone 6 devices from Apple. However, the year also marked a dividend boost of 40 percent among the company's investors along with its first share buyback since the year 2007.
"Their main interest is to increase long-term value through shareholder returns policies, so they have been calling for more dividends and share buybacks," said Robert Yi, Samsung's head of investor relations. He had likewise said that shareholders should not expect to achieve the same in 2015 since the company is focusing more on growth.
Within two years, Samsung has closed at least 10 deals. However, the acquisitions were fairly small, prompting the investors to look for bigger deals.
"We are primarily focused on M&A deals for companies that would be good fits to Samsung's current businesses," added Yi.
Samsung wanted to strengthen its shareholder outreach. It plans to achieve this by organizing more public events and by increasing the availability of its top management to institutional investors.
There's also a plan to boost foreign retail investment in an effort to establish consumer loyalty. In 2013, the company arranged a program through the aid of Bank of America Merrill Lynch wherein U.S. retail investors were allowed to invest directly in the company's shares. Samsung did not elaborate further on the number of investors that acquired stocks through the program.
"Dividends and other forms of shareholder returns are responsibilities that the company has for shareholders, so we will make efforts to meet them," said Yi. "But our primary objective is growth and that is what we are communicating to our shareholders."
Compared with foreign companies, South Korean companies are known for being extremely frugal as far as dividends are concerned. Shares that are listed in Seoul tend to have a discounted trading rate to peers.
In October of the previous year, Samsung shares declined to multi-year lows. However, the company managed to recover and saw an increase of 3.8 percent on Tuesday's closing.
