Hankook Tire, the country’s largest tire manufacturer, posted 7 trillion won ($6.9 billion) in sales and 1.3 trillion won in operating profit last year, with most of its sales coming from abroad.
The company, whose products range from ultrahigh-performance to radial and bias-ply tires, is over the moon with its performance, the latest turnover being the highest in its 73-year history.
The masterminds behind these achievements are Cho Yang-rai, chairman of the company, and his second son Cho Hyun-bum.
Cho Yang-rai. (Illustration by Park Gee-young)
The elderly Cho, aged 77, was ranked 22nd in stock ownership here, with an estimated 1.2 trillion won worth of company shares, according to Forbes Korea. The junior Cho, 42, is the chief marketing officer and chief corporate management officer of the company and ranks 50th with 535 billion won.
“Cho Yang-rai should be credited for nurturing Hankook Tire into a global tire maker. The company now has seven overseas manufacturing plants and is planning an eighth in Tennessee,” the magazine said.
“Cho Hyun-bum owns 2.07 percent of the company’s shares and is very enthusiastic about research and development.”
The rise of their wealth also seems likely to provide some consolation for the Cho clan, which has been subject to prosecutors’ investigations for several years.
Cho Hyun-bum (Illustration by Park Gee-young)
Cho Hyun-bum, whose father-in-law is former President Lee Myung-bak, was revealed in 2012 to have bought two plots of real estate, including a high-end condominium in Hawaii, without reporting to the government. A Korean journalist in the U.S. reported that Cho attempted to abruptly sell the condo before Lee Myung-bak’s retirement in February 2013.
Things may have been even more painful for Cho Yang-rai, whose older brother, Hyosung Group chairman Cho Suck-rai, is now waiting to be tried on charges of embezzlement and creating a slush fund, alongside his eldest son Hyun-joon. Cho Hyun-joon was previously convicted for an illegal real estate transfer but was controversially pardoned in January 2013, a month before Lee’s retirement.
Above all, Hankook Tire may need to resolve suspicions surrounding the worker fatality rate in order to become a globally respected company.
According to the labor union and civic activists, 93 incumbent and former workers of Hankook Tire died between 1996 and 2007 of illness and suicide that the union linked to the hazardous working environment. They also claim that the company has been responsible for the deaths of more than 10 workers since 2008.
Hankook Tire denied of the allegations, but said it would support the funeral costs and other processes of the workers in question.
By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)