A logo of Samsung Electronics is seen outside of Samsung Electronics Seocho building in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020. Lee Kun-Hee, the ailing Samsung Electronics chairman who transformed the small television maker into a global giant of consumer electronics, has died, a Samsung statement said Sunday. He was 78. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Lee Kun-Hee, the ailing Samsung Electronics chairman who transformed the small television maker into a global giant of consumer electronics but whose leadership was also marred by corruption convictions, died on Sunday. He was 78.
Lee died with his family members by his side, including his only son and Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the company said in a statement.
Samsung didn’t announce the cause of death, but Lee had been hospitalized since May 2014 after suffering a heart attack and the younger Lee has been running Samsung, South Korea’s biggest company.
“All of us at Samsung will cherish his memory and are grateful for the journey we shared with him,” the Samsung statement said. “His legacy will be everlasting.”
South Korean President Moon Jae-in sent senior presidential officials to pass a condolence message to Lee’s family at a mourning site. In the message, Moon called the late tycoon “a symbol of South Korea’s business world whose leadership would provide courage to our companies” at a time of economic difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Moon’s office said.
Lee’s family said the funeral would be private but did not immediately release details.
Lee inherited control of the company from his father, and during his nearly 30 years of leadership, Samsung Electronics Co. became a global brand and the world’s largest maker of smartphones, televisions and memory chips. Samsung sells Galaxy phones while also making the screens and microchips that power its major rivals — Apple’s iPhones and Google Android phones.
Its businesses encompass shipbuilding, life insurance, construction, hotels, amusement parks and more. Samsung Electronics alone accounts for 20% of the market capital on South Korea’s main stock exchange.
Lee leaves behind immense wealth, with Forbes estimating his fortune at $16 billion as of January 2017.
His death comes during a complex time for Samsung.
When he was hospitalized, Samsung’s once-lucrative mobile business faced threats from upstart makers in China and elsewhere. Pressure was high to innovate its traditionally strong hardware business, to reform a stifling hierarchical culture and to improve its corporate governance and transparency.
Like other family-run conglomerates in South Korea, Samsung has been credited with helping propel the country’s economy to one of the world’s largest from the rubbles of the 1950-53 Korean War. But their opaque ownership structure and often-corrupt ties with bureaucrats and government officials have been viewed as a hotbed of corruption in South Korea.
Lee Kun-Hee was convicted in 2008 for illegal share dealings, tax evasion and bribery designed to pass his wealth and corporate control to his three children. In 1996, he was convicted of bribing a former president. But in both cases, he avoided jail after courts suspended his sentences, at the time a common practice that helped make South Korean business tycoons immune from prison despite their bribery convictions.
Most recently, Samsung was ensnared in an explosive 2016-17 scandal that led to South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s ouster and imprisonment.
Lee Jae-yong was sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 for offering 8.6 billion won ($7 million) in bribes to Park and one of her confidants to help secure the government’s backing for his attempt to solidify control over Samsung. He was freed in early 2018 after an appellate court reduced his term and suspended the sentence. But last month, prosecutors indicted him again on similar charges, setting up yet another protracted legal battle.
Lee Kun-Hee was a stern, terse leader who focused on big-picture strategies, leaving details and daily management to executives.
His near-absolute authority allowed the company to make bold decisions in the fast-changing technology industry, such as shelling out billions to build new production lines for memory chips and display panels even as the 2008 global financial crisis unfolded. Those risky moves fueled Samsung’s rise.
Lee was born on Jan. 9, 1942, in the southeastern city of Daegu during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. His father, Lee Byung-chull, had founded an export business there in 1938, and following the Korean War, he rebuilt the company into an electronics and home appliance manufacturer and the country’s first major trading company.
When Lee Kun-Hee inherited control of Samsung from his father in 1987, Samsung was relying on Japanese technology to produce TVs and was taking its first steps toward exporting microwaves and refrigerators.
A decisive moment came in 1993 when Lee Kun-Hee made sweeping changes to Samsung after a two-month trip abroad convinced him that the company needed to improve the quality of its products.
In a speech to Samsung executives, he famously urged, “Let’s change everything except our wives and children.”
Not all his moves succeeded.
A notable failure was the group’s expansion into the auto industry in the 1990s, in part driven by Lee Kun-Hee’s passion for luxury cars. Samsung later sold near-bankrupt Samsung Motor to Renault. The company also was frequently criticized for disrespecting labour rights. Cancer cases among workers at its semiconductor factories were ignored for years.
Earlier this year, Lee Jae-yong declared that heredity transfers at Samsung would end, promising the management rights he inherited wouldn’t pass to his children. He also said Samsung would stop suppressing employee attempts to organize unions, although labour activists questioned his sincerity.
The 52-year-old Lee expressed remorse for causing public concern over the 2016-17 scandal, but did not admit to wrongdoing regarding his alleged involvement.
Lee Kun-Hee resigned as chairman of Samsung Electronics before the 2008 conviction. But he received a presidential pardon in 2009 and returned to Samsung’s management in 2010.
“As South Korea’s most successful entrepreneur, (Lee Kun-Hee) received a dazzling spotlight, but he had many vicissitudes full of grace and disgrace,” the ruling Democratic Party said in a statement. “We hope a ‘new Samsung’ will be realized at an early date as Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong promised.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
