OK, I will continue carry the banner of the Yi So-yeon around here (and don’t you naysayers try to shake it loose). Cheers to her as she came back to Korea yesterday and will soon start her new gig(Chosun).
Having earned a doctorate from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in February, Yi will now work [...]
With the sub-prime tremors cooling down and with nothing else better to do on a slow news day, Forbes has compiled a list of Korea’s richest 40 people. I know the gallery is not as interesting as the race girls or Djamilya scrubbing away dirt and body oil, but I sort of think that #4, Lee [...]
As you may all know, Lee Kun-hee has publicly resigned as Samsung Group’s Chairman. Or has he? According to today’s Washington Post, Lee’s power and influence may stay long after his announced resignation. The tentacle-like arms of the Lee family are long and far reaching and the press conference yesterday may merely be a rehearsal [...]
Or so says Yonhap.
Update:Or does he? I have been admittedly turned a rather jaded eye to the whole Samsung thing, half expecting Lee to play the “Hospital Card”. Something caught my eye.
Who will control Samsung now? The literal heir apparent is Lee Jae-yong, Kun-Hee’s son who has been groomed for quite a while. However, the [...]
You know it’s not a good sign when the guy you signed on to make your country a “hub” renews his contract, but decides it best he work outside the “hub”.
A couple mundane business stories get odd when compared side by side. What can you make of these two:
Major banks are making inroads into the riskier consumer financing market to provide loans to those who have difficulty in getting loans due to credit problems, drawing mixed reactions from consumers and analysts. - Korea Times, April [...]
I do not know why, but this really pisses me off. Excuse me for being a little impolite, all my snarkiness went to the title.
At the time the Korean-US FTA was agreed to, Korea got some resolution to one of its pressing issues. The US agreed to make Korea part of its visa waver program [...]
It seems that President Lee does not see a weaker won as all good news (Reuters):
“Although there is more or less a positive effect, (the weaker won) becomes a threatening factor to corporate management, and especially, appears to cause a sharp rise in consumer prices,” Lee said.
Trying to keep the won weak against the dollar [...]
OK, to take a break from the sex-crimes for just a sec, now i’m seeing a “Basic Rate” (middle rate) of w1,029 = $1 on my computer, and that’s just outrageous, worrisome, damaging (and kind of sickening in the pit of the gut for anyone who lived through the financial crisis that started just 10 [...]
Perhaps, according to Reuters:
Japanese camera makers such as Canon and Nikon have long ruled the $22-billion digital camera market, but South Korean upstart Samsung Techwin is making a serious bid to build its brand to take on the big guns.
Read the rest on your own.
(HT to reader)
This is giving me a headache. You know somebody got millions of won to pitch an idea like that. Somebody should tell Samsung, KT&G, and others that if your name means everything it really means nothing. Besides, how the heck do you get “Challenge to the Top” from “C&T”?
UPDATE
Speaking of things that mean everything so [...]
Given the recent history of its chairman Kim Seong-yeon and his “unique” crisis management skills (let alone his skills in determining what IS a crisis), I find amusing the consternation of a Hanwha spokesperson on being assigned one of Fortune magazine’s least admired companies in the world:
“We can hardly understand this article, which lacked the [...]
But man, I hate watching officials resign over something as stupid as this.
Perhaps I’ve been in Korea too long, but I find it reassuring that my leaders are getting laid, although admittedly, you have to wonder about the judgment of any man willing to shell out up to US$31,000 a day for a piece of [...]
Businessweek looks at the tensions between Korean and American managers at Hyundai’s US operations (something we’ve looked at here). Stuff like this:
The problem is that the companies keep booting out American talent. And many of the American executives who do stay find parent Hyundai Motor’s corporate culture to be suffocating. According to several current and [...]
Somebody is either smarter than I expected, or reading this blog. Yesterday the government announced measures to fight inflation. Among them are reducing some tariffs on food products.
While I find it a good step, I find it curious at the same time the exact products and their new tariffs are not given. As I noted [...]
In an irony-free investment move, the National Pension Service has invested US$300 million with US private-equity fund Texas Pacific Group, which rescued Korea First Bank in 1999 and got no thanks for the effort. TPG’s affiliate/competitor Newbridge Capital, you may recall, got kicked around to no end in the press when it exited in 2005 [...]
Many around me are disappointed I have not drank the Lee Myung-bak Kool-aid. Much like Obama-maina in the US at the moment, Lee is supposed to be “break” from the past, and more importantly is “different” then all before him. Somehow Lee is to waive a magic wand and cure all the problems with South [...]
Good news (kind of). According to Finance Minister Kwon Ok-kyu: “The direct impact of the bad debts from the subprime mortgages on Asian financial institutions should be limited, because the proportion of Korea’s exports to the U.S. nearly halved in the past decade, and the export ratios of China and southeast Asian nations member states [...]
Police detained HP Korea executives and officials on charges of receiving bribes from one of its distributors.
Police said Thursday that they have referred HP Korea’s vice president, identified as Ham, and nine other former and incumbent officials of the company to the prosecution. Dozens of other company and government officials were also booked in connection [...]
Lone Star’s chief of Korean operations, Paul Yoo, was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. He was taken directly to prison from the courtroom. Ruling for the court, Lee Kyung Choon stated:
. . . Their activity constituted a grave fraud activity and severely damaged the interest of minority shareholders of KEB Credit [...]
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