This is correct money-wise. Samsung Group's market cap is around $400-500 billion, while its chairman (the family head) is estimated to be worth $10-15 billion.
It's not as correct decision-making influence-wise. The power balance of "family vs remaining shareholders" is different from what would be assumed purely based on those numbers.
It can be said that Samsung C&T is the actual head subsidiary/control vehicle through which the other subsidiaries are run at the top level, and the family is easily the biggest shareholder in C&T.
The KOSPI, which is what the subsidiaries are listed on (the "group" is not listed), is seen as a bit of a joke by both foreign and domestic investors for that reason. Besides its obvious downsides, it does have upsides as well - the "sacrifice everything for the short-term stock price" that is the norm in the US is less common in Korea for this reason. Corporations work differently.
alt Hacker News
This is correct money-wise. Samsung Group's market cap is around $400-500 billion, while its chairman (the family head) is estimated to be worth $10-15 billion.
It's not as correct decision-making influence-wise. The power balance of "family vs remaining shareholders" is different from what would be assumed purely based on those numbers.
It can be said that Samsung C&T is the actual head subsidiary/control vehicle through which the other subsidiaries are run at the top level, and the family is easily the biggest shareholder in C&T.
The KOSPI, which is what the subsidiaries are listed on (the "group" is not listed), is seen as a bit of a joke by both foreign and domestic investors for that reason. Besides its obvious downsides, it does have upsides as well - the "sacrifice everything for the short-term stock price" that is the norm in the US is less common in Korea for this reason. Corporations work differently.