Kumho Asiana Group is a large

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n ''

Chaebol A chaebol (, ; ) is a large industrial South Korean conglomerate run and controlled by an individual or family. A chaebol often consists of multiple diversified affiliates, controlled by a person or group whose power over the group often exc ...

'' (conglomerate), with subsidiaries in the

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

leisure Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leisure ...

, and

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

industries. The group is headquartered at the

Kumho Asiana Main Tower Kumho Asiana Main Tower (금호아시아나 본관) is the headquarters of the Kumho Asiana Group, a South Korean conglomerate. The head office of Air Seoul is in the building. Architecture Unlike the adjacent apartment and office buildings, the ...

in Sinmunno 1-ga,

Jongno-gu Bosingak bell pavilion Jongno District () is a district () in central Seoul, South Korea. It takes its name from a major local street, Jongno, which means "Bell Road". Characteristics Jongno District has been the center of the city for 600 yea ...

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

. As of 2014, the largest shareholder is Park Sam-koo, the third son of the company's founder, who stepped down as CEO in 2010.

History

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Park In-chon began a

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

service, based out of Geumnamno in Seo-gu,

Gwangju Gwangju () is South Korea's sixth-largest metropolis. It is a designated metropolitan city under the direct control of the central government's Home Minister. The city was also the capital of South Jeolla Province until the provincial office ...

. By the 1950s, operations had expanded to include bus and coach services, operating as Gwangju Passenger Service (today, Kumho Buslines). The company began

vertical integration In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the suppl ...

in 1960 with the establishment of Samyang Tire, today

Kumho Tire Kumho Tire (formerly known as Samyang Tire) is a Korean tire manufacturer. It is a subsidiary of Chinese tire conglomerate . Kumho Tire was previously operated as a business unit of the Kumho Asiana Group. Operations An industrial conglomerate ...

. Facing a shortage of raw material, Kumho Synthetic Rubber (today

Kumho Petrochemical Kumho Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (abbr. KKPC; ) is a multinational chemical company based in South Korea, with headquarters in Seoul. It was founded in 1970 when Kumho Group struggled to secure raw materials for its bus and tire businesses. Kum ...

) was established in 1971. The group expanded considerably as the Korean economy boomed, adding subsidiary companies in construction, shipping and logistics, aviation, leisure, culture and entertainment, financial services, and information technology. Surviving the

1997 Asian financial crisis The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1 ...

in a position of strength, it acquired several companies from cash-strapped competitors in the 2000s, including

Daewoo Daewoo ( ; Hangul: , Hanja: , ; literally "great universe" and a portmanteau of "dae" meaning great, and the given name of founder and chairman Kim Woo-choong) also known as the Daewoo Group, was a major South Korean chaebol (type of conglomerat ...

Engineering & Construction and Korea Express. These acquisitions were heavily

leveraged In finance, leverage (or gearing in the United Kingdom and Australia) is any technique involving borrowing funds to buy things, hoping that future profits will be many times more than the cost of borrowing. This technique is named after a lever ...

, leading to cash flow issues as the

financial crisis of 2007–08 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

began to impact the economy. The group was forced to sell off assets and begin a debt workout program in late 2009 after an attempt to sell Daewoo E&C failed on the open market. In an effort to restructure, the group sold its controlling 45 percent stake in

to Chinese tire company Doublestar in July 2018. In April 2019, the company sold its controlling stake in

Asiana Airlines Asiana Airlines Inc. ( ) is a South Korean airline headquartered in Seoul.Home
." Asiana Airlines. Retrieved 13 September 2 ...

to help pay down mounting credit debt.

Subsidiaries

* Asiana Abacus * Kumho Art Museum * Kumho Art Hall * Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation * Kumho Electric * Kumho Engineering and Construction * Kumho Resort * Kumho Buslines - Reacquired from KoFC IBK Kaystone PEF in May 2015. * Kumho Songnisan Buslines

History

Subsidiaries

See also

References

External links