14
KIM BEOM-SU
$1.75 BILLION T
KAKAO AGE: 51
15
LIM SUNG-KI
$1.7 BILLION T
HANMI SCIENCE AGE: 77
16
SHIN CHANG-JAE
$1.67 BILLION T
KYOBO LIFE INSURANCE
AGE: 63
17
LEE BOO-JIN
$1.66 BILLION T
SAMSUNG C&T AGE: 46
18
LEE SEO-HYUN
$1.55 BILLION T
SAMSUNG C&T AGE: 43
19
KIM NAM-JUNG
$1.54 BILLION 3
DONGWON AGE: 44
20
LEE MYUNG-HEE
$1.52 BILLION S
SHINSEGAE AGE: 73
21
CHANG PYUNG-SOON
$1.51 BILLION
KYOWON AGE: 66
22
HONG SEOK-JOH
$1.5 BILLION
BGF RETAIL AGE: 64
23
KIM TAEK-JIN
$1.44 BILLION S
NCSOFT AGE: 50
24
BANG JUN-HYUK
$1.43 BILLION Ì
NETMARBLE AGE: 48
25
KIM JUN-KI
$1.32 BILLION
DONGBU AGE: 72
26
CHUNG MONG-JOON
$1.3 BILLION S
HYUNDAI HEAVY INDUSTRIES
AGE: 65THE LIST
SUP MORE THAN 10% TDOWN MORE THAN 10%
ÌNEW TO LIST 3 RETURNEELEE BOO-JIN appears to live a charmed life as the coun-
try’s richest woman. She’s president and chief executive
of Hotel Shilla, one of Seoul’s top lodging and conference
centers, and a big shareholder in Samsung C&T, a holding
company for the Samsung empire. But she’s in the middle
of a messy divorce from Im Woo-Jae, who revealed this
year that he was her bodyguard when they met and not a
Samsung office employee, as the company had claimed.
Nevertheless, after he was forced to go to school in the
U.S., he was made vice president of Samsung Electro-
Mechanics. They’ve been separated for five years and have
a 10-year-old son. Im has asked for $1.04 billion in the
divorce settlement but is expected to receive much less.LEE YONG-HO/EYEPRESS/NEWSCOM; JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; YONHAP NEWS/NEWSCOM (2); POLARIS/NEWSCOMLEE KUN-HEE, the Samsung Electronics chair-
man and head of the Samsung Group, suffered a
heart attack in 2014 and remains on the top floor
of Seoul’s Samsung Medical Center. His condition
is “stable,” says an aide, but “he is not in a condi-
tion where he can participate in management.”
Samsung officials say they have no word on
whether he is able to communicate or is con-
scious. There have been no photos of him made
public since he was stricken. Treated for years
for lung cancer, Lee had long since arranged to
divide his empire among Jay Y. and daughters
Boo-Jin (No. 17) and Seo-Hyun (No. 18).HONG RA-HEE, 72, Samsung’s first lady, resigned in March
as director of the Samsung Museum of Art, known as Leeum,
and the Ho-Am Art Museum. Aides cite “personal reasons,”
considering that her husband is bedridden and her son in
jail. Hong is an arts graduate of Seoul National University,
and both museums contain collections from her father-in-
law, Samsung founder Lee Byung-Chull. Leeum comes from
Lee’s name and the last syllable of “museum”; Ho-Am, the
patriarch’s pen name, means “lake rock,” for his breadth and
strength. One of her brothers, Hong Seok-Hyun, published
JoongAng Ilbo, a top daily newspaper, and now his son does.
Another brother, Hong Seok-Joh, runs the country’s biggest
convenience-store chain and ranks No. 22.The future of Samsung Electronics
seemed to hang in the balance when
the company was forced last Septem-
ber to recall the GALAXY NOTE7, at the
time the latest, highly touted Sam-
sung smartphone, after the batteries
in some of the phones exploded and
caught fire. Attempts at correcting the
problem failed, and Samsung stopped
production the next month. By January,
Samsung had figured out what was
wrong: Batteries made by two suppliers
were positioned incorrectly, short-circuiting the phones. The disaster cost Samsung many
billions of dollars before it moved on to the Galaxy S8, which went on sale last month.
Samsung reports that “the initial response has been very strong.”Trials and
tribulations:
Jay Y. Lee’s court
case continues.