With Lee in charge, Samsung turned into a worldwide behemoth: by 2014, it was the world’s greatest creator of cell phones and memory chips.
Samsung Electronics director Lee Kun-hee, who changed the South Korean firm into a worldwide tech titan, passed on at 78 years old on Sunday, the organization said.
Under Lee’s administration, Samsung rose to turn into the world’s biggest maker of cell phones and memory chips, and the company’s general turnover today is comparable to a fifth of South Korea’s GDP.
Samsung’s brilliant ascent helped make Lee South Korea’s most extravagant and most remarkable industrialist.
“It is with extraordinary trouble that we declare the death of Kun-hee Lee, Chairman of Samsung Electronics,” the organization said in an announcement.
“Executive Lee died on October 25 with his family, including Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee, close by.
“Executive Lee was a genuine visionary who changed Samsung into the world-driving trailblazer and mechanical force to be reckoned with from a nearby business,” the firm stated, including: “His inheritance will be never-ending.”
Samsung is by a wide margin the greatest of the family-controlled aggregates, or chaebols, that overwhelm business in South Korea.
They drove the country’s change from a war-attacked ruin to the world’s twelfth most significant economy. Yet, these days are blamed for cloudy political ties and smothering rivalry – with Lee himself twice sentenced for criminal offences, in one case paying off a president.
Worldwide force
At the point when Lee acquired the chairmanship of the Samsung bunch in 1987 – established by his dad as a fish and organic product exporter – it was at that point the nation’s most effective combination, with tasks going from custom hardware to development.
Be that as it may, it was viewed as a low maker of modest, inferior quality items.
“We should make a huge difference aside from our spouses and children,” Lee said in 1993.
The organization got together and consumed every one of the 150,000 cell phones it had available, making ready for the resurrection of the profoundly influential “Anycall” handset.
With Lee in charge, Samsung turned into a worldwide behemoth. When he endured a cardiovascular failure in 2014, it was the world’s greatest creator of cell phones and memory chips and a significant part in semiconductors and LCDs.
Lee infrequently addressed the media, yet was firmly viewed at whatever point he broke his long quiets, frequently with fate loaded New Year corporate locations.
His child, Samsung Electronics bad habit administrator Lee Jae-yong, has been in charge of the organization since the 2014 coronary episode.
‘Loner ruler.’
Regardless of his tremendous riches and influence, Lee only sometimes wandered out from the high dividers of his private compound in focal Seoul to visit the organization base camp, gaining him the epithet “recluse ruler”.
Lee, the third child of Samsung bunch originator Lee Byung-chull, had a weakness for canines – created as a youngster in Japan where he went to class from age 11. He was additionally known for his affection for films, horseriding and fascinating supercars.
He learned at Japan’s esteemed Waseda University and procured an MBA at George Washington University in the United States.
He became terrible habit administrator of the gathering’s development and exchanging arm at 36 years old, and became bunch executive nine years after the fact, soon after his dad’s passing.
Lee wedded Hong Ra-hee – whose father was equity serve – with whom he had a child and three little girls.
Pay-offs, misappropriation, tax avoidance
The universes of legislative issues and business have been interlaced in South Korea, and the association was reflected in Lee’s vocation.
In 1996, he was indicted for paying off the previous president Roh Tae-charm to get favours for Samsung in business strategy choices.
Lee was likewise seen as liable of misappropriation and tax avoidance in a slush store embarrassment in 2008, which saw him quickly venture down from the organization initiative.
Be that as it may, suspended sentences implied he never spent time in jail in prison, and he got two official acquittals, proceeding to initiate his nation’s significant endeavours to make sure about the 2018 Winter Olympics.
A couple of years after the fact, he warded off a claim from his more seasoned sibling and sister asserting they were qualified for Samsung shares worth billions of dollars.
He had been in clinical consideration after his coronary failure; however, hardly any subtleties were ever uncovered about his condition, leaving him covered in riddle even in his last days.