Kim Woo Choong, (born December 19, 1936, Taegu, Korea [now in South Korea]—died December 9, 2019, Suwŏn, South Korea), Korean businessman and founding father of the Daewoo Group. Kim’s actions main as much as Daewoo’s eventual chapter led to his fleeing the nation and to his eventual prosecution on fraud fees.
Kim got here of age through the Korean War (1950–53) and at age 14 discovered himself chargeable for supporting his household. He offered newspapers to make ends meet and managed to graduate from the distinguished Kyunggi High School in Seoul. In 1960 he graduated from Yonsei University with a B.A. in economics.
Kim’s enterprise profession started in 1961 at Hansung Industrial Co., Ltd., an organization owned by certainly one of his family. Six years later he borrowed $10,000 to determine Daewoo Industrial Co., Ltd., a textiles buying and selling enterprise. The agency acquired a lift in 1976 when the South Korean authorities launched state-led financial insurance policies. Kim was requested to take over a debt-ridden heavy business firm. Within a 12 months that firm was making a revenue, and Daewoo had a agency basis in heavy business in addition to textiles. Kim went on to take over a shipyard firm in 1978 and a residence equipment enterprise in 1983.
In the Eighties South Korea’s financial development hit a snag owing to maturing markets and rising wages, and so Kim made daring investments in such far-flung international locations as Libya, Poland, Pakistan, and Sudan. As a consequence, the Daewoo Group emerged as a world company. During this time Kim grew to become a famous philanthropist, utilizing his private holdings in Daewoo to determine the Daewoo Foundation, a nonprofit group that operated rural hospitals all through South Korea and funded analysis in varied fields. Kim was additionally a profitable author. His autobiography, Every Street Is Paved with Gold (1989), which he wrote primarily for younger folks, was a runaway finest vendor and was listed within the Korean version of the Guinness Book of Records for having offered a million copies in 5 months.
Despite the Asian monetary disaster that started in 1997, by 1998 the Daewoo Group, with 320,000 workers worldwide and $44 billion in belongings, ranked 18th on Fortune journal’s Global 500 List of the world’s largest firms. The extensively diversified conglomerate was concerned in development, shipbuilding, vehicle manufacturing, telecommunications, electronics, textiles, and heavy business. It was among the many 4 largest conglomerates in South Korea.
In March 1998 Kim took over as chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI). The FKI, which represented the pursuits of a number of hundred firms, was thought-about South Korea’s strongest enterprise group. Kim tried to make use of his new place to assist fight South Korea’s financial droop, the worst because the finish of the Korean War. He spearheaded nationwide campaigns to spice up exports and enhance overseas forex reserves, and he invested in auto firms around the globe. His overinvestment backfired, nonetheless, and the Daewoo Group declared chapter in 2000. The legal and civil fees Kim confronted in relation to the chapter prompted him to resign from each FKI and Daewoo and to flee the nation in 1999.
In the aftermath of the chapter there have been in depth layoffs from the Daewoo group, which precipitated rioting by former workers in early 2001. Seven of the corporate’s former executives have been despatched to jail on fraud fees later that 12 months, whereas Kim remained in hiding. When he returned to his residence nation in 2005, he was arrested on fees together with fraud and embezzlement. He was sentenced in 2006 to 10 years in jail and was ordered to return billions of {dollars} price of funds. In 2007 South Korean Pres. Roh Moo-Hyun pardoned the ailing Kim.