Tuesday, May 30, 2006

A Flood Of Memories

I once worked with this guy's (brief) venture here in the USA:
Daewoo founder sentenced to prison term 
By Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A Seoul court on Tuesday sentenced the founder and former chairman of collapsed conglomerate Daewoo to 10 years in prison for a range of charges including embezzlement and accounting fraud.

The Seoul Central District Court said it also ordered Kim Woo-choong, 69, to forfeit more than 21 trillion won ($22 billion) and pay a fine of 10 million won ($10,600).
Kim was indicted in June last year on charges of multi-trillion won accounting fraud, illegal financing and diverting funds out of the country. He was also accused of embezzlement and breach of trust. 
Daewoo U.S. was a screwed up company from the git-go (before GM bought the automotive division, the parent company was in debt to the tune of $50 billion) but I had great fun working with Daewoo executives in Compton, CA who tried their best to execute the nutty directives emanating from Seoul and from Chairman Kim.

Fond memories. Disheartening story. Important lessons learned.