By Kim Tae-gyu
Among the chief executive officers at the helm of the country’s 1,000 major listed companies, Lotte Group Chairman Shin Kyuk-ho is the oldest at 88 years old, a Seoul-based consultancy has reported.
The Korea CXO Institute disclosed its survey results Wednesday on the heads of the 1,000 corporations to discover that Shin is the oldest at 88 together with Sempio Foods Chairman Park Seung-bok and Yoosung Enterprise Chairman Ryu Hong-woo.
In comparison, Daishin Securities Deputy President Yang Hong-seok is the youngest CEO. Born in 1981, Yang is the only 20-somthing in charge of one of the nation’s top 1,000 listed firms.
``The average age of the CEOs is 56.6 years old. Those in their 50s accounted for half of the executives. In particular, those who were born in 1952 and 1953 were the biggest portion at 13.1 percent,’’ Korea CXO Institute head O Il-sun said.
``A total of six chief executives were born before 1930 including Lotte Chairman Shin. By contrast, Daishin Securities’ Yang is the youngest CEO as the only one in the list that was born in the 1980s.’’
Shin is the founder of Lotte Group, which was established in 1948 as a producer of chewing gum. He expanded the business horizons to various sectors to retain more than 60 units at the moment.
Lotte Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Korea famous for its stable cash flows thanks to their unique business portfolio and the chaebol also has firm roots in Japan.
Under the stewardship of Shin, Lotte has advanced into such segments as snacks, beverages, insurance, construction, retail chains, department stores, amusement parks and hotels ― essentially whatever provides a direct influx of cash.
Daishin’s Yang is a grandson of founder Yang Jae-bong. As the heir of the top-tier brokerage house, he is expected to lead Daishin for several decades to come.
Broken down by groups, the CEOs of POSCO are the oldest as they are 59.3 years old on average. The figure for the country’s top steelmaker was 58.6 years old last year and it has edged up in 2010.
Those of SK Group are the youngest at 53.3 years old. Samsung Group, the country’s foremost chaebol by any measure, was in the middle with the average age of CEOs at 57.8 years old.
``The overall average went down to 56.6 years old this year from 57 in 2009. However, the figure for the five foremost chaebol crept up with the sole exception of Samsung,’’ O said.
``We struggle to find the reason. Because there have been few cases of reshuffling in the five groups over the past year, the average seems to have inched up with the existing CEOs age. Yet, things may be different next year because major changes are expected to take place.’’
Chaebol refers to Korea’s sprawling conglomerates in which founding families exercise almost unchecked control despite small direct shareholdings.