⁍ Lee Kun-hee helped grow his father’s noodle trading business into a sprawling powerhouse with assets worth some $375 billion.
⁍ He is the latest second-generation leader of a South Korean family-controlled conglomerate to die.
⁍ The death of Lee, South Korea’s richest with a net worth of $20.9 billion according to Forbes, is set to prompt investor interest in a potential restructuring of the group.
– Lee Kun-hee, the 78-year-old vice chairman of South Korea’s Samsung Group and one of the world’s richest men, has died after a six-year hospital stay for a heart attack. “Lee was a true visionary who transformed Samsung into the world-leading innovator and industrial powerhouse from a local business,” Samsung said in a statement, per Reuters. “His 1993 declaration of ‘New Management’ was the motivating driver of the company’s vision to deliver the best technology to help advance global society.” Lee, the son of the group’s founder, helped build Samsung into the world’s biggest technology firm by revenue during his decades at the helm of the conglomerate, which has assets worth some $375 billion. He is the latest in a long line of South Korean business leaders to die: His son, Jay Y. Lee, is facing trial for his role in a corruption scandal involving then-President Park Geun-hye.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/samsung-electronics-chairman/samsung-chairman-lee-kun-hee-head-of-south-koreas-biggest-conglomerate-dies-at-78-idUSKBN27A011