DAEWOO ST721 YEAR 2001.

Daewoo (Korean pronunciation: for "Great Universe") or the Daewoo Group was a major South Korean chaebol (conglomerate). It was founded on 22 March 1967 as Daewoo Industrial and was dismantled by the Korean government in 1999. Prior to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998, Daewoo was the second largest conglomerate in Korea after Hyundai Group, followed by LG Group and Samsung Group. There were about 20 divisions under the Daewoo Group, some of which survive today as independent companies.

History

The Daewoo Group was founded by Kim Woo-jung in March 1967. He was the son of the Provincial Governor of Daegu. He graduated from the Kyonggi High School, then finished with an Economics Degree at Yonsei University in Seoul. It became one of the Big Four chaebol in South Korea. An industrial and multi-faceted service conglomerate, Daewoo was prominent in expanding its global market through joint ventures all over the world.
During the 1960s, after the end of the Syngman Rhee government, the new government of Park Chung Hee intervened to promote growth and development in the country. It increased access to resources, promoted exports, financed industrialization, and provided protection from competition to the chaebol in exchange for a company's political support. In the beginning, the Korean government instigated a series of five-year plans under which the chaebol were required to achieve a number of basic objectives.
Daewoo did not become a major player until the second five-year plan. Daewoo benefited from government-sponsored cheap loans based on potential export profits. The company initially concentrated on labor-intensive clothing and textile industries that provided high profit margins. The most significant resource in this plan was South Korea's large workforce.
The third and fourth of the five-year plans occurred from 1973 to 1981. During this period, the country's labor force was in high demand. Competition from other countries began eroding Korea's competitive edge. The government responded to this change by concentrating its effort on mechanical and electrical engineering, shipbuilding, petrochemicals, construction, and military initiatives. At the end of this period, the government forced Daewoo into shipbuilding. Kim was reluctant to enter this industry, but Daewoo soon earned a reputation for producing competitively priced ships and oil rigs.
During the next decade, the Korean government became more liberal in economic policies. Small private companies were encouraged, protectionist import restrictions were loosened, and the government reduced positive discrimination, to encourage free market trade and to force the chaebol to be more aggressive abroad. Daewoo responded by establishing a number of joint ventures with U.S. and European companies. It expanded exports of machine tools, defense products (under the S&T Daewoo company), aerospace interests, and semiconductor design and manufacturing. Eventually, it began to build civilian helicopters and airplanes, priced considerably cheaper than those produced by its U.S. counterparts. It also expanded efforts in the automotive industry and was ranked as the seventh largest car exporter and the sixth largest car manufacturer in the world. Throughout this period, Daewoo experienced great success at turning around faltering companies in Korea.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Daewoo Group also produced consumer electronics, computers, telecommunication products, construction equipment, buildings, and musical instruments (Daewoo Piano).

Crisis and collapse

Daewoo Group ran into deep financial trouble in 1998 due to the Asian financial crisis, increasingly thin relationships with the Korean government under President Kim Dae Jung, and its own poor financial management. With the Korean government in deficit, traditional reliance on access to cheap and nearly unlimited credit was severely restricted.
In 1998, when the economic crisis forced most of the chaebol to cut back, Daewoo brazenly added 14 new firms to its existing 275 subsidiaries, in a year where the group lost a total of 550 billion won ($458 million) on sales of 62 trillion won ($51 billion). At the end of 1997, South Korea’s four biggest chaebol had a debt of nearly five times their equity. While Samsung and LG cut back in the midst of the economic crisis, Daewoo took on 40% more debt."^[3]
By 1999, Daewoo, the second largest conglomerate in South Korea with interests in about 100 countries, went bankrupt, with debts of about 80 billion won ($84.3 million).
Soon after the demise, Chairman Kim Woo-Choong fled to France, and former Daewoo factory workers put up "Wanted" posters with his picture. Kim returned to Korea in June 2005 and was promptly arrested, after spending six years abroad. Kim was charged with masterminding accounting fraud worth 41 trillion won ($43.4 billion), illegally borrowing 9.8 trillion won ($10.3 billion) and smuggling $3.2 billion out of the country, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.^[4] On 30 May 2006, Kim was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of fraud and embezzlement. On the last day of the trial, Kim tearfully addressed the court, "I cannot dodge my responsibility of wrongly buttoning up the final button of fate."

Factors that affected Daewoo's performance

• Government intervention: Government policy served as a double edged sword: it protected the chaebol, providing them with massive subsidies, unlimited cheap credit, and protection against foreign competition. However, the price for these services was total loyalty to the government. Chaebol were forced to take over industries against their will.
• Labor market: The traditional work ethic that helped Korea reach economic prosperity has been threatened as workers have begun increasingly violent protests against years of long hours and low pay. Daewoo shipbuilding suffered heavy losses due to workers' demands for pay raises.
• Operating in a global economy: International demand for free trade is forcing the Korean government to open its market. The chaebol will lose its protectionist import controls. Most recently, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Economic Community imposed trade limitations.
• Product quality from Korea: Korean products were considered to be of low quality.
• By the 1990s, Daewoo Group was heavily leveraged, major markets were stagnant, expenditures on R&D were increasing, labor unrest was continuing, and government policy was turning against the company.
• Kim was most recently charged with allegedly paying campaign contributions to former president Roh Tae Woo in exchange for a large government contract to build a submarine base.