Samsung grandson found dead

A grandson of Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull was found dead in Seoul early yesterday, police said.

The body of Lee Jae-chan, 46, was discovered in his apartment parking lot at about 7 a.m., police said. Investigators suspect Lee committed suicide by jumping from his apartment. No suicide note has been found.

Lee Jae-chan is the son of Lee Chang-hee, the late president of Saehan Media Inc. and second son of Lee Byung-chul, who founded the Samsung Group in 1938 as a small trading company. Lee Chang-hee died of blood cancer in 1991.

Lee Jae-chan, former CEO of Saehan Construction, an affiliate of Saehan Group, has not had a job since 2000 when he stepped down from the company after its merger.

“It’s been a long time since Lee took his hands off of the company’s management. He did not have a job,” an official at the Yongsan Police Station said.

Lee lived alone in his apartment for the past five years, separated from his family, according to the police.

Saehan Group was established in 1997 after Saehan Industries’ synthetic unit was spun off from Samsung Group. The company once ranked as the 27th-largest business group in the country with 12 affiliates, but sold or merged most of its money-losing businesses in 2000 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Yonhap