South Korea’s richest and most powerful industrialist, Lee Kun-hee, who turned Samsung Electronics into one of the world’s biggest tech companies, was buried yesterday.
Lee died on Sunday at the age of 78, six years after being left bedridden by a heart attack.
Under his leadership, Samsung became the world’s largest producer of smartphones and memory chips, and the firm’s overall turnover today is equivalent to a fifth of South Korea’s GDP.
Photo: Bloomberg
It is by far the largest of the chaebols, the sprawling family-controlled conglomerates that dominate business in the country.
As well as his son and heir Jay Y. Lee, the Samsung Electronics vice chairman who has been the group’s de facto leader since his father was incapacitated, several chaebol chiefs gathered at the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, where the four-day funeral rites were held.
They included Lee Kun-hee’s sister Lee Myung-hee, who is chairwoman of the Shinsegae retail group, and nephew Lee Jae-hyun, who heads the entertainment and food service conglomerate CJ Group, along with Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Eui-sun, reports said.
“I have been to many countries in the world, but I have never seen a man like him who did better than his father,” a childhood friend said in a eulogy, according to reports.
Afterwards a stretch Lincoln hearse carrying his coffin and an LED light display reading “May the soul of the deceased rest in peace” emerged slowly and passed by about 100 reporters.
His eldest daughter, Lee Boo-jin, chief executive of Hotel Shilla, was seen sobbing on board a following bus.
The cortege passed by locations including Lee Kun-hee’s home and office in Seoul, and Samsung Electronics’ chip complex in Hwaseong, south of the capital, where employees stood holding chrysanthemums — a flower of mourning in Korean culture — to pay their respects.
“We will remember your footsteps forever,” read a banner hung at one entrance, Yonhap news agency reported, while some workers shed tears.
Samsung flags have been flying at half-mast on company buildings.
Lee Kun-hee was laid to rest at a family grave site in Suwon where the late patriarch’s grandparents are buried.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS