'세계경영 신화에서 역대 최대 부도'…김우중 전 대우그룹 회장 별세
Former Daewoo Group Chairman Kim Woo-choong died on Monday after a struggle with chronic disease.
His life saw the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, from extraordinary business success to being sentenced to over eight years behind bars over embezzlement and accounting fraud.
Kim Hyo-sun reports.
Former Daewoo Group Chairman Kim Woo-choong passed away late Monday at a hospital in Suwon, just south of Seoul.
He was 82 years old.
Kim's health started to deteriorate in August last year and progressively got worse.
"He suffered severe pneumonia lately, and received injections of antibiotics."
Kim founded a small textile trading company in 1967, which later grew into one of the biggest industrial conglomerates in the world.
He was only 27 years old.
Daewoo Group, which translates into "Great Universe" in Korea, outpaced other South Korean conglomerates, including Hyundai and Samsung, in its global reach,... expanding its global network to over one-hundred countries.
In just 15 years, the group became South Korea's fourth largest conglomerate in terms of asset size.
However, the company ran into deep financial problems during the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
It went bankrupt in 1999, with debts of over 80 billion U.S. dollars.
Kim blamed his company's downfall on the strategies of then-President Kim Dae-jung's economic team, which forced Daewoo Group to lower its debt ratio below 200 percent a year.
In 2002, the group's flagship company, Daewoo Motor was sold to General Motors, and renamed GM Korea.
Its other affiliates like Daewoo Engineering and Construction as well as Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering were sold to other domestic rivals.
Following the group's bankruptcy, Kim fled South Korea and spent years living abroad, but he was later sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison over embezzlement and accounting fraud in 2006.
"I had mixed feelings of sadness and anger, but it was something I couldn't change."
After being pardoned by presidential amnesty in 2008, he focused on nurturing young entrepreneurs in other parts of the world, including Vietnam, which he regarded as his second home.
Kim Hyo-sun, Arirang News.
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