Lee Jae-yong leaves for the Netherlands, to return on June 18

Industry

Published: 07 Jun. 2022, 16:30 Updated: 07 Jun. 2022, 18:28

Lee Jae-yong leaves for the Netherlands, to return on June 18

Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Electronics vice chairman, at the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center on Tuesday, leaving for Europe. [YONHAP]

Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Electronics vice chairman, left for Europe on Tuesday.

He arrived at the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center around noon and did not respond to reporters when asked about his meeting plans. The aviation center is for private aircraft.

Lee is scheduled to return on June 18.

When leaving for the U.S. and Canada in November, his first overseas trip since being granted parole, he told reporters waiting at the airport that he would be meeting with executives from Moderna in Boston and with executives from other companies.

Lee was serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for embezzlement and bribery when he was paroled last year.

According to press reports, he will be visiting the Netherlands, Germany and Britain.

His travel plans were first revealed by the Seoul Central District Court last week and later confirmed by the electronics maker on Friday. Lee is currently being tried in connection with alleged irregularities related to a 2016 merger but has been permitted by the court to travel.

ASML, the largest supplier of photolithography equipment in the world, is located is the Netherlands. Samsung Electronics once owned 3 percent of the company but has significantly reduced its shareholding.

The Dutch company makes ultraviolet lithography equipment, which is necessary for the manufacturing of advanced chips, and Samsung Electronics is a major purchaser of this equipment.

This year, ASML plans to ship 51 units, of which 18 will be delivered to Samsung Electronics.

Last week, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Han Jong-hee said that the company was in the process of making an acquisition, without offering a timeline or a target. Earlier comments from other executive have suggested that the company was contemplating a major purchase.

The last major purchase by Samsung Electronics was of Harman, an American audio electronics company, in 2017.

On June 7, 1993, Lee Kun-hee, Lee's father and former company chairman, announced a new Samsung Electronics management philosophy while on a trip to Germany. He ordered his employees to change everything except for their spouse and children.

Samsung Electronics, the largest company in Korea, is the world's No. 1 maker of memory chips, but it has been struggling to gain ground in the non-memory market, where Taiwan's TSMC holds the largest share by far.

The Korean company has promised to begin selling 3-nanometer chips in the first half but has faced yield problems in the manufacturing of these advanced semiconductors.

BY LEE HO-JEONG, CHOI EUN-KYUNG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]