Korean chaebol Woongjin chief, executives indicted for embezzlement by fraudulently issuing commercial papers (CPs) and illegally providing financial support to its units

August 8, 2013 Leave a comment

2013-08-07 16:08

Woongjin chief, executives indicted for embezzlement

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The prosecution indicted Woongjin Group Chairman Yoon Seok-keum and six other executives for inflicting losses to the company by fraudulently issuing commercial papers (CPs) and illegally providing financial support to its units. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said Wednesday that they issued 100 billion won worth of CPs in July and August of 2012, although they knew that the company was unable to pay back the debt due to its junk-level credit ratings. It said the company issued the securities under the name of Woongjin Holdings without disclosing that the group’s decision to file for court protection after giving up its plan to sell another key unit Woongjin Coway. In September last year, the company also sold CPs worth 19.8 billion won. Chairman Yoon and the other executives are also accused of embezzlement and breach of trust. In March 2009, they withdrew 1.25 billion won of corporate funds from Rexfield Country Club, a Woongjin Group’s affiliate firm, on the presumption of using it as consulting fees to buy real estate, but gave it to founding members of the group in severance payments. The prosecution also said that the executives committed breach of trust by directing other units to provide 96.8 billion won in illegal financial support to Woongjin Capital, owned by group Chairman Yoon.

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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