Chung Mong Hun

Chung attended Posung High School and Yonsei University, where he majored in Korean literature. He was painfully shy and his college friends nicknamed him “country bride” and “country chicken”.

He began his career at Hyundai in 1975, entering Hyundai Heavy Industries. Thereafter, he worked his way up the corporate ladder through Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Hyundai Merchant Marine, becoming president of the shipping company in 1981.

When Hyundai decided to enter the electronics sector in 1982, Chung was chosen by his father to be chief executive of the new subsidiary. He duly turned Hyundai Electronics into an international success. As part of the Korean restructuring program known as the Big Deal, Chung successfully negotiated the takeover of LG Semicon in 1999, giving Hyundai the largest single share of the global memory chip market.

He endeared himself to his father when the Hyundai patriarch was prosecuted for allegedly embezzling corporate funds for an unsuccessful presidential campaign. Chung took the fall and spent a couple of months in jail.

Chung also proved devoted to his father’s favourite loss-making project — investing in his birthplace, North Korea. Chung spent much time working on deals with the North that would cost the company millions, to the detriment of the rest of the business.

In 1998 his loyalty was rewarded when his father appointed him joint group chairman with his elder brother, Chung Mong Koo, chairman of Hyundai-Kia Motor. But believing he was the natural heir, the “bulldozer”, as Chung Mong Koo is known, resented this move and began to plot against his brother.

Over the next two years the two men tried to expand the group’s businesses, only for Hyundai to fall deeply into debt. As a result, analysts began to question the older brother’s ability to run such a huge and diverse organisation. Chung Mong Hun, on the other hand, was considered sympathetic, down-to-earth and methodical. He repeatedly emphasised the importance of communication between senior and junior management and the need to adopt long-term strategies.

The group’s difficulties also led to demands from the government and investors that Hyundai’s ownership be separated from its management. The group responded by setting up a restructuring team to draw up a plan for unravelling the complex links among Hyundai subsidiaries that had enabled the family to maintain control.

While Chung declared himself willing to fall in with his father’s wishes and resign from all his posts, his older brother proved extremely reluctant to surrender power. In early 2000 a vicious battle for control broke out between the two after Mong Koo attempted to oust Lee Ik Chi — one of his younger brother’s allies — as the chairman of Hyundai Securities. Lee’s position had grown weak after he was convicted of fraud for using Hyundai funds to bolster share prices of a Hyundai electronics subsidiary.

The dispute was settled only by the intervention of their 85-year-old father. Propped up by aides and barely able to walk, Chung Ju Yung made a rare visit to Hyundai’s headquarters, where he told a meeting of the heads of all 46 Hyundai companies that he wanted Mong Hun to become sole chairman of both the group and its three largest companies, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, Hyundai Electronics and Hyundai Merchant Marine. Mong Koo, meanwhile, would remain chairman of the group’s automotive companies, Hyundai Motor and Kia Motor. When, in accordance with the government’s wishes, Hyundai Group was broken up, Mong Hun’s share of the divided empire found itself struggling with mounting debt, and in November 2002 Mong Hun was forced to go cap in hand to his brother. After initially refusing to countenance a rescue package, Mong Koo eventually accepted his brother’s apology and declared: “Let’s forget about the past. What’s important is the future, isn’t it?”

Hyundai’s shipbuilding arm, Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is owned by another brother, Chung Mong Joon, also agreed to help. However, plans to save Hyundai Engineering & Construction from bankruptcy by raising $882 million of fresh liquidity remained beset with snags at Mong Hun’s death.

Chung Mong Hun’s already difficult situation became even worse last November when he and other senior members of Hyundai came under investigation,after allegations that North Korea was bribed to attend the breakthrough North-South summit in June 2000. Hyundai said that the money it gave to North Korea was in payment for the company’s monopoly rights to tourism and other projects in the impoverished communist state. However, an independent investigation found that $100 million was transferred on behalf of the South Korean Government, to help to ensure that the vital meeting took place.

Chung was formally indicted in June on charges of doctoring company books to hide the money transfers to North Korea. If convicted, he could have faced up to three years in prison. Former government officials have also been charged, but not the former President, Kim Dae Jung.

Chung’s body was discovered yesterday morning by his secretary. Police said that he had probably jumped some hours earlier from the twelfth floor of Hyundai’s headquarters in central Seoul. His office window was found to be open and three envelopes were discovered on his desk. In these suicide notes, he is said to have apologised to his family for his action, urged his deputy Kim Yoon Kyu to continue Hyundai’s economic ventures with North Korea and requested that his ashes be scattered at Mount Kumgang, a scenic northern resort to which Hyundai operated ferry tours.

Chung Mong Hun is survived by his wife, a son and two daughters.

Chung Mong Hun, chairman of Hyundai Asan 2000-03, was born in 1948. He died on August 4, 2003, aged 55.