중국 기독교 신자 공산당원 수 추월

The third-largest drugmaker’s sudden bulk purchase of shares of the largest drugmaker is intensifying a battle for management rights between father and son.
Yesterday morning, Hanmi Pharm Co., the third-largest Korean drug maker, said that it bought an additional 5 percent of shares in Dong-A Pharmaceutical, the largest drug company. This increased Hanmi’s holdings in Dong-A to 6.2 percent. In a press conference, Hanmi’s vice chairman and chief executive Min Kyung-yoon said that the purchase was purely for long-term investment purposes.
After Hanmi’s announcement, Kang Moon-seok, chief executive of Sooseok Trading Co., announced that he and other special parties concerned joined together to boost their shares from 5.6 percent to 10.93 percent, by attracting favorable shareholders to their side. Some of those members include Korea Alcohol Industrial Co. (3.4 percent) and KCNA (0.7 percent).
“After I heard that Hanmi bought the shares, I thought it could lead to a merger or acquisition, and thought I should defend the management rights,” Mr. Kang said.
However, some industry insiders speculated that Hanmi’s Chairman Lim Sung-ki, an old friend of Dong-A’s Chairman Kang Shin-ho, bought the shares at the latter’s request. Kang Moon-seok is the second son of Kang Shin-ho and the two are not on good terms.
Kang Moon-seok was chief executive of Dong-A in 2003, but stepped down in 2004 due to low sales. Since then, he and his father have been both trying to increase their shares. The conflicts in relationships between the two reached a peak in September last year when Chairman Kang belatedly divorced his wife, Kang Moon-seok’s mother.
The chairman’s fourth son, whose mother is different from Kang Moon-seok’s, was head of sales at Dong-A but also became president of another Dong-A subsidiary, Dong-A Otsuka, making people think that the chairman had his fourth son in mind for the future head of the group. Whether Hanmi sides with Chairman Kang or with his son will be critical in who holds the management reins. Although Hanmi’s chief financial officer Han Chang-hee said that the company bought Dong-A shares because they had some extra cash, industry insiders said that Hanmi may be trying to make a profit by boosting existing competition between the various parties that want to take over Dong-A.
Previously, Hanmi did just that, when it increased its shares in Dongshin Pharmaceutical from 1 percent to 7.9 percent.

비공인 '지하교회' 신도 급증 … 8000만 명 넘어 #"시장경제에 긍정 역할" 평가

by Shim Jae-woo, Sohn Hae-yong