Asset Manager Pays Debt With Suicide
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
``I’m sorry. At least I tried hard to have my investors recover the investment principal. But I failed. I will pay my debt with death.’’
That’s part of a note left by the head of a small boutique investment management firm, who was found dead in a hotel room in southern Seoul in an apparent suicide.
Police in the Gangnam area said the 55-year-old man, president of Setbit investment advisory firm, was found dead in a hotel room in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, Wednesday. A clerk at the hotel found him and notified police.
The man, identified only as Choi, had checked in on Sunday afternoon and is suspected of having taken sleeping pills and whisky. Dozens of letters, which were apparently written to investors, were also found, along with sleeping pills and some liquor bottles, according to police.
Police have yet to determine the extent of Choi's financial losses and the number of investors involved. He established the asset firm in 2000 with funds from about a dozen people he knew from college.
Choi, a graduate of Inha University, is known to have donated about 1.2 billion won to the school since 2000.