Coffee house franchise CEO found dead; suicide note not found

Kang Hoon

By Kim Se-jeong

Café Mango Six CEO Kang Hoon, 49, was found dead Monday in an apparent suicide at his home.

According to police in Seoul on Tuesday, he hung himself in his tiny studio apartment in southern Seoul, and his body was found by one of his employees at 5:46 p.m. Monday. No suicide note was found.

Police also found a cell phone message sent to an acquaintance: “Life is too difficult to carry on.”

Café Mango Six is a renowned coffee and dessert chain. As Kang struggled with his shrinking business, he filed for corporate rehabilitation proceedings with the court earlier this month. The café’s sales were 10 billion won last year ($8.97 million), down from 19 billion won the previous year. The number of cafes also halved to around 100 during the same period.

Kang enjoyed quite a success story in the nation’s coffee industry. He was the founder of the Hollys Coffee chain and made Café Bene the most popular local coffee shop brand. His success earned him the nickname, “Coffee King.”

His association with the coffee business began in 1997 at Shinsegye, the owner of Starbucks Korea. Kang was an employee and laid the groundwork for Starbucks’s launch in Korea.

As the coffee shop’s opening was postponed due to the 1997 financial crisis, he left Shinsegye and founded Hollys Coffee in 1998. By the time he sold the company in 2003, Hollys Coffee was one of the prominent names among Korean coffee drinkers. He took several years off before joining Café Bene, where he increased the number of shops to 500.

In 2010, he left Café Bene and launched his own brand, Café Mango Six. In April last year, he purchased Juice Six and Coffee Six. The business was notably on the decline last year.