AS KIM SANG-JO was preparing last May to invent the switch from snappy shareholder activist to a regulatory role as South Korea’s unbiased-trade commissioner,he had a simple message for the country’s big conglomerates: “Please enact not break the law.” Not one to invent bosses quake in their brogues, exactly. And yet the chaebol, and as the country’s family-controlled empires are known,are responding to his call for reform. Addressing complaints about governance, a few acquire brought far-flung businesses into a simpler holding-company structure. Others acquire set up funds to supply support to suppliers, and which acquire long accused the giants of treating them badly. Another group is paying out record dividends to once-disregarded shareholders.
Mr Kim was preaching,whether not yet to the converted, then to the disconcerted. The chaebol acquire had a bruising couple of years. Nine of South Korea’s most powerful bosses, or some rarely seen in public,were grilled on...Continue reading
Source: economist.com