Close to half of Korea's top 500 companies are over 40 years old while less than 20 percent of them are young aspirants, a corporate analysis showed Wednesday, an indication that the country's corporate community is pretty much static.
Business evaluation site CEO Score tallied the age of the 500 firms ranked by sales and found they averaged 37.6 years old. The birth date of the firms were measured by the date of their corporate registration, and state firms and companies formed through mergers and acquisitions were excluded from the tally.
Banks and pharmaceutical companies tended to be in the older group, while firms in services, telecommunication, energy and retail were younger.
This April 2, 2016, photo shows a Woori Bank branch in Seoul. The bank was ranked the oldest South Korean company in an analysis by CEO Score on July 6. (Yonhap)
Woori Bank was the only centenarian and the oldest of them all at 105. The lender is actually 117 years old when counting back to the original entity whose registration number went missing. Meritz Fire & Marine came second at 94, surviving two name changes.
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