Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/25/hyundai_comes_up/

Hyundai comes up with 500 cow idea – again

Chaebol under pressure from banks as 20 luxury cars go north

By A staffer

Posted in On-Prem, 25th October 1998 17:28 GMT

Whenever it seems Hyundai is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), his own President Kim, or the South Korean banks, Mr Chung Ju-yung comes up with the cow idea. Earlier this year, in advance of talks which outsider observers hoped would result in a re-shuffling of South Korean chaebol business, Mr Chung drove 500 cows across the parallel into North Korea. And, according to local English newspaper, The Korea Herald, a spin doctor from Hyundai says that will happen on Tuesday of this week, with an additional 501 heifers headed for the famine stricken north of the peninsula. Mr Chung will also take 20 spanking new “luxury” Hyundai cars, the paper reported. He is hoping to strike JVs with the leading leaders in North Korea. But, in the same week that Mr Chung, his 501 cows and 20 cars cross the parallel, a government regulator will attempt to ride roughshod over the chaebol’s resistance to tidying up debt guarantees between subsidiaries that form part of the same group, the paper reported. It is not only Hyundai which is showing resistance – the other top chaebols in the country are also fighting the clean up. And the IMF will wait until March 2000 for the entire Augean Stable to empty. ® Click for more stories