Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Zenith - One and Only -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MJ who wrote (6556)	2/28/2003 11:21:25 PM
From: Robert Utne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6570

Hi MJ, I met John Koo in Delaware Bankruptcy Court. He is sharp, intelligent and has demonstrated a keen killer instinct to go for the jugular using hired hands. The Koos take no prisoners and are not above bribes including one for $100,000 to the Bush Presidential Library in Houston. Zenith never had a chance once Koo zeroed in. Unfortunately, there were very few "Bob Utnes" who gave a damn. We conducted a thorough inverstigation of the fraud instigated by Jon Koo against Zenith and submitted our findings to the SEC, DOJ, FTC, White House, numerous elected officials and the Illinois Attorney General. Only the SEC partially responded by delaying the bankruptcy by more than one year. These charges are still listed at airfarecheck.com The Wall Street Journal, initially, was interested in our fight to preserve Zenith from Korean takeunder but quickly backed off when they got heat from LG. Corporate fraud and under-regulation will continue forever. Looks like the shareholders of LG are getting theirs, too. So, how is your Sunday jazz group doing? Take care, Bob

To: MJ who wrote (6556)	2/28/2003 11:30:43 PM
From: Robert Utne	Respond to of 6570

Here is the Forbe's article that MJ referred to: Is the restructuring of LG aimed at benefiting investors--or its family owners? For years South Korea's LG Group rarely made headlines. Even though it ranked just below Samsung as the country's second-largest chaebol, with $92 billion in revenues last year, it didn't keep up with Samsung's pursuit of brand glamour because it focused on humdrum commodities such as chemicals, white goods and low-tech electronics like TVs. LG's founding families, the Koos and the Huhs, liked the low profile. Since Koo In Hwoi and Huh Joon Koo started the group in 1947, the two families have shared control through a traditional web of cross-shareholdings--it's said there were as many as 200 among family members and LG companies. Koo Bon Moo, the cofounder's grandson, runs the group as chairman and is one of dozens of relatives on LG's 130,000-strong payroll. As Korea attempts to globalize, LG (once called Lucky Goldstar) is now looking to refashion itself, emphasizing electronics under the slogan "Digitally Yours," launched last January. In the past year LG has gained ground, along with Samsung, in the global cell phone market, going from the tenth-largest producer of cell phones to the sixth. (Samsung is third, behind Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people ) and Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ).) Here in the U.S. LG Electronics is reviving the Zenith brand (which it bought in 1995) as a high-end label for its digital TVs and related gear. This year $40 million is going into marketing Zenith. "This is the most expensive marketing campaign we've ever done in North America," says Wayne Park, vice president of digital TV marketing. The Zenith brand still commands an 80% recognition rate here, versus less than 1% for LG Electronics. That helps in the fight against Samsung, which spent $337 million last year on its own North American campaign. In the past five years LG Electronics' stock is up threefold, to $34, although Samsung Electronics has done even better--up sixfold, to $266. But the marketing noise may be a distraction from the most important moves being made at LG, which are internal. Since 1998 the two families have engaged in the most radical restructuring of the group since its founding. The final result, to be unveiled in March, will be a Western-style holding company. Most cross-holdings are to be eliminated. A single entity, called LG Corp., will hold stakes in a streamlined group of companies. The move is being pitched as a boon for investors. The interests of minority shareholders would, in theory, be aligned with those of the family in the process--since both groups would benefit from the presumably more efficient management of the operating companies. But since the restructuring began, six transactions have been criticized as being unfair to outside shareholders. This despite the restructuring's touted aims. One transaction has generated a looming lawsuit, by Jooyoung Kim, Korea's leading shareholder rights lawyer, who has finished ten such suits in the past four years--and lost only two of them.