Samsung head built industrial tech titan
Tech powerhouse
LEE Kunhee built Samsung Electronics into a global powerhouse in smartphones, semiconductors and televisions.
He died on October 25 after spending more than six years in hospital following a heart attack, the company said.
The charismatic leader of Samsung Group, and the country’s richest person, grew it into South Korea’s biggest conglomerate. But he was also convicted of bribery and tax evasion, and he and the empire he built were vilified for wielding huge economic clout, and for opaque governance and dubious transfers of the family wealth.
‘‘Lee is such a symbolic figure in South Korea’s spectacular rise and how South Korea embraced globalisation, that his death will be remembered by so many Koreans,’’ said Chung Sunsup, chief executive of corporate researcher firm Chaebul.com.
Lee, who was 78, is the latest secondgeneration leader of a South Korean familycontrolled conglomerate, or chaebol, to die, leaving potentially thorny succession issues for the third generation.
Ruling party leader and former prime minister Lee Nakyon praised Lee’s leadership, but said, ‘‘It can’t be denied that he reinforced chaebolled economic structure and failed to recognise labour unions.’’
The death of Lee, with a net worth of $NZ30.3 billion according to Forbes, is set to prompt investor interest in a potential restructuring of the group involving his stakes in key Samsung companies such as Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Electronics.
Lee owns 20.76% of the insurance firm and is the biggest individual shareholder of Samsung Electronics with a 4.18% stake.
Lee’s son, Jay Y. Lee, has been embroiled in legal troubles linked to a merger of two Samsung affiliates that helped Lee assume greater control of the group’s flagship Samsung Electronics.
The younger Lee served jail time for his role in a bribery scandal that triggered the impeachment of thenPresident Park Geunhye. The case is on appeal.
Lee died with his family by his side, the conglomerate said.
‘‘Chairman Lee was a true visionary who transformed Samsung into the worldleading innovator and industrial powerhouse from a local business,’’ Samsung said in a statement.
Lee became Samsung Group chairman in 1987 but had to resign more than a decade later after being convicted of bribing the country’s president.
He was convicted again in
2008 of tax evasion and embezzlement, but the longtime member of the International Olympic Committee was pardoned to help the country’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
His aggressive bets on new businesses, especially semiconductors, helped grow his father Lee Byungchull’s noodle trading business into a sprawling powerhouse with assets worth $US375 billion ($NZ544 billion), with dozens of affiliates stretching from electronics and insurance to shipbuilding and construction.
During his lifetime, Samsung Electronics developed from a secondtier TV maker to the world’s biggest technology firm by revenue — seeing off Japanese brands like Sony Corp, Sharp Corp and Panasonic Corp in chips, TVs and displays and beating Apple Inc in smartphones. — Reuters