South Korea’s LG Group yesterday welcomed the heir to its late patriarch as a holding company board member, paving the way for yet another family transfer of corporate power in the nation.
LG is South Korea’s fourth-biggest conglomerate and perhaps best known internationally for its household appliances and consumer electronics, but among myriad other activities it also has operations in chemicals, cosmetics and Coca-Cola bottling.
Koo Kwang-mo, a senior executive at LG Electronics Co and the adopted son of late chairman Koo Bon-moo, who died last month aged 73, was appointed to the LG Corp board at a general shareholders’ meeting.
South Korean business is dominated by sprawling family-run empires known as chaebol that were instrumental in its rise to become the world’s 11th-largest economy, aided by low-interest loans and close government connections, but now they are criticized for stifling innovation and competition, while the controlling families are accused of running the firms like personal fiefdoms with minimal regulation by officials or oversight by shareholders.
Family feuds and criminal charges — often related to tax evasion or bribery — regularly make headlines.
Samsung scion Jay Y. Lee was jailed last year for his role in the corruption scandal that brought down ousted South Korea president Park Geun-hye, although most of his convictions were quashed on appeal.
Unusually, though, the Koo family have largely escaped scandal.
Koo Kwang-mo, 40, is expected to eventually become chief executive of LG Corp, Yonhap news agency reported, making him the fourth generation of his family to assume the reins.
He was born a nephew to his predecessor, but the elder Koo — who had fathered two daughters — adopted him in 2004 to ensure he had the status of the eldest son and preserved the direct male family line.
Ordinarily nephews are well down the inheritance order in South Korea, following children, parents and brothers.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”