The Obituary
Daewoo began in 1967 as a small textile trading firm and grew under founder Kim Woo-choong into South Korea’s second-largest chaebol, with interests in cars, shipbuilding, electronics, and construction across dozens of countries. Its expansion was fueled by enormous borrowing, encouraged by close ties to the Korean government. When the 1997 Asian financial crisis dried up credit, the group could not service its debts. In 1999 it collapsed under roughly $50 billion in liabilities, the largest corporate bankruptcy the world had seen. It was broken up; its car unit was eventually absorbed by General Motors.
Worth remembering
- It was South Korea's second-largest chaebol, spanning cars, ships, electronics, and construction.
- Its collapse with about $50 billion in debt was the largest corporate bankruptcy in the world at the time.
Sources
- The Daewoo Group collapsed in 1999 with about $50 billion in debt, then the largest corporate bankruptcy in history Wikipedia
- Daewoo's collapse followed the 1997 Asian financial crisis and aggressive debt-financed expansion The New York Times
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.