Lee Yoon-hyung
Posted on 11/29/2005 2:38:24 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
The Times November 29, 2005
Lonely suicide of the lovelorn millionairess
By Andrew Salmon and James Bone
Samsung tried to cover up death of heiress who had everything money could buy
SHE was young and appeared to have it all. Lee Yoon Hyung, an heiress to the family that controls South Korea’s Samsung Group, certainly had all the money she could ever need to indulge her passion for fast cars and fine art. With a personal fortune estimated at £105 million and degrees from prestigious universities in New York and Seoul, there seemed to be no limit to what she could achieve. Her self-confidence and charm were in evidence in a personal website, called Pretty Yoon Hyung.
But yesterday the grim reality of life as the daughter in a family that ran the country’s top conglomerate was revealed when it emerged that Ms Lee had committed suicide.
At the age of just 26 she hanged herself with an electrical cord at her New York apartment.
True to form, it was Samsung the company, and not her family, that issued a statement confirming the circumstances of her sad and lonely death.
Last week newspapers in Seoul ran front-page articles reporting that she had died in a traffic accident, citing police and medical examiners’ reports which were backed up by Samsung.
Yet when investigative journalists challenged Samsung’s version of events the company was found to have been less than honest, as has so often been the case.
Yesterday a Samsung spokesman said that the company did not correct initial reports out of respect for the family.
Ms Lee lived in Manhattan’s bohemian East Village, a limousine at her beck and call. But a doorman at her building on Astor Place told reporters that she sometimes seemed to stay in her apartment for as long as a week at a time without leaving.
Friends said she had become lonely and depressed since moving to New York, after a plan to marry a Korean boyfriend was opposed by her parents.
Now, inevitably, Ms Lee’s mysterious death has cast further shadows over South Korea’s richest, most powerful and most secretive company at a time when it can ill afford more negative publicity.
With interests that range from computer chips to shipping, Samsung epitomises South Korea’s chaebol, the family-run conglomerates that were credited with building the Korean economic miracle from the 1960s to the 1980s.
But the chaebols’ collusive business practices, enormous debts and opaque management style were widely criticised for bringing the country to its knees during the Asian economic crisis of 1997.
After the economic crash, Samsung restructured, disposing of loss-making interests. Samsung Electronics, the group’s flagship enterprise which makes semiconductors and mobile phones, has overtaken Sony, its Japanese rival, in market capitalisation and brand value.
But Samsung has a darker side. Its chairman, and Ms Lee’s father, is the reclusive Lee Kun-hee, son of the founder, who is currently incommunicado in the United States, where he is reportedly undergoing treatment for cancer.
He has ignored two separate summonses to appear before the National Assembly after Samsung was found this year to have paid political bribes during the 1997 presidential election.
The scandal resulted in the recall of Hong Seok-hyun, Seoul’s ambassador to Washington. Mr Hong, who was implicated, is related to the Samsung family by marriage.
There are also questions hanging over a murky share deal that handed Lee Jae-yong, Ms Lee’s older brother and Samsung heir apparent, a majority stake in Everland, a Disneyesque theme park that is Samsung’s de facto holding company.
Two Samsung executives received suspended sentences for arranging the deal, though the company is appealing against the decision.
This year Samsung also agreed to pay a $300 million fine to the US Department of Justice over price fixing of memory chips.
And the group has challenged Seoul’s Fair Trade Commission in the Constitutional Court after it ruled that Samsung had to divest some shares in financial affiliates.
The issue lies at the heart of Korea Inc’s notorious financial opacity.
Given the group’s power and influence, and its clear proclivity for wielding it, some Korean media have dubbed their country “The Republic of Samsung.”
FATAL ATTRACTION
Domino Harvey, daughter of actor Lawrence Harvey, gave up a privileged lifestyle to become a bounty hunter in Los Angeles. She was found dead in the bath after a suspected drug overdose
Unity Mitford, one of the aristocratic Mitford sisters, became obsessed with fascism and Hitler. When Britain declared war on Germany, she shot herself in the head. The suicide attempt failed, but she eventually died of meningitis
Christine Onassis, daughter of shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, attempted suicide twice and died at 37 of causes which may have been related to weight and drug abuse
Edoardo Agnelli, only son of Gianni Agnelli and heir to the Fiat business empire, committed suicide by jumping from a Turin bridge.
The following is some background information, some of which is also covered in the article above. This is from my comment from a related previous thread.
The founding family of Samsung is in a real mess, some of which is its own creation. They once made bet for a conservative presidential candidate. After Roh Moo-hyun took over, the new government doggedly go after "irregular" transactions which allowed Lee Keun-hee's son to eventually take over the control of Samsung group. After 2 years of sparring, the government and Samsung group suddenly made up their difference. The government relented their pressure, and appointed Lee's brother-in-law Hong Suk-hyun as an Korean ambassador to U.S., who is to work as Roh's front man in D.C.. About a year before, JoongAng Ilbo, erstwhile conservative daily, suddenly changed its tone and declared that it would take a "moderate" line. Mr. Hong is the owner of JoongAng Daily.
The government tried to use Samsung's connection and money to shore up its viability, and Samsung wanted the repreieve from government attack on group's founding family. The government may have also wanted Samsung to spearhead N. Korean venture, which is one of the centerpiece to the current government. If that was the case, Samsung did not really bite.
After about 9 months, government's honeymoon with Samsung is abruptly over. Now that growing wiretapping scandal implicates Mr. Hong as a principal bagman and the government effort to paint itself as pragmatic moderate is paying no dividend, it went back to its anti-big business leftist root. The government is demanding Mr. Lee Keun-hee to testify in person.
What the government is doing is not just to go after Samsung. It simultaneously going after the former president Kim Dae-jung under whose tenure much of rampant wiretapping had occurred. Apparently, Roh want to completely control Kim Dae-jung and Kim's loyal support base by turning heat on Kim.
Any way, there is a financial legislation quite unfavorable to Samsung pending in S. Korean legislature, illegal political donation scandal, and latent anxiety of hostile take-over by foreign entities. And now this tragic family event. This must be the worst year for Samsung's owner.
Ping!
Photos?
Me, I'm an old guy who's learned how to be a hermit, and like it.
Lee Yoon-hyung
Of a dead lady?
I'll say she did.
(Sorry -- couldn't help posting a tasteless comment.)
This must be the ultimate 'poor little rich girl' tale.
Photo's of what?
Exactly....a pretty strange request....glad someone else noticed it.
There's a picture on this website: http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2005/11/26/the_curious_dea.php
I don't know how to append it to Freerepublic.com
There someone posted her photo...did it satisfy you.
She must have had mental problems...young, pretty, loaded with $$$ and she was lonely?
not nearly as much as the miscellaneous comments.
Tragic. I suppose money really can't buy happiness. Not a lot of good news for a father in a hospital bed.
Come on. You know as well as anybody that nobody wants pictures of a dead woman. Pictures of the living person prior to death may be helpful if the name is unrecognizable.
Holy cow. The rich are crazy.
OK if you say so......thanks for setting me straight.
/sarcasm.
Those dang Asian cultures, so fixated on suicide.
She should have assimilated. Here in America, we just shoot the parents who oppose it.
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