[Yonhap Photo News]
A high-profile divorce suit filed by one of South Korea's richest women took a new turn Thursday after her bodyguard-turned husband demanded the division of assets worth 1.03 billion US dollars.
The request from Lim Woo-jae, a standing advisor of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, sprang a surprise on South Korea's online community. The 47-year-old husband had appealed after a lower court ruled in favor of Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin, who is the eldest daughter of Lee Kun-hee, the ailing patriarch of South Korea's largest family-run conglomerate Samsung Group.
Lee Boo-jin, 45, was listed by US business magazine Forbes as one of the world's 100 most powerful women. Hotel Shilla operates South Korea's second-largest duty-free chain after Lotte with her wealth linked to other group units through a complex web of cross-shareholding.
They married in August 1999 in the male version of "Cinderella", but their fairy-tale romance got into trouble two years ago for unknown reasons, triggering plenty of rumors and speculation. Lim was known to have met his wife while he served as her bodyguard, but he once said in a newspaper interview that he had attempted suicide due to stress and pressure from the tycoon's family.
This week, Lim filed a separate suit, requesting a small amount of alimony and the division of assets worth 1.2 trillion won ($1.03 billion).
The suit comes as Lee Kun-hee, 74, has been incommunicado since he was hospitalized in May 2014 after being hit by a stroke. His only son, Samsung Electronics vice chairman J. Y. Lee, has since struggled to streamline the group's structure to pave the way for his debut as group leader.
In September last year, the group completed a merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, with the merged entity keeping the name of Samsung C&T. The deal helped the founding Lee family cement control by allowing the group to strengthen its cross-ownership structure since the merged affiliates had stakes in other companies.
The group has struggled to cut costs and sell non-core units in an effort to raise funds for massive inheritance tax.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
