South Korea’s Samsung names Jay Y Lee as executive chairman

Tech large’s announcement confirms firm shall be formally run by the third technology of its founding household.

Samsung Electronics has named its de facto chief Jay Y Lee as government chairman [File: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters]

Samsung Electronics’s de facto chief Jay Y Lee has been named government chairman, a symbolic transfer confirming that South Korea’s most precious firm shall be formally run by the third technology of its founding household.

The announcement on Thursday displays a task that Lee, 54, has held since his father, the late patriarch and Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, was hospitalised in 2014, analysts mentioned. The elder Lee died in 2020.

Lee has been the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of South Korea’s greatest enterprise conglomerate, since 2012.

“The Board cited the present unsure world enterprise surroundings and the urgent want for stronger accountability and enterprise stability in approving the advice,” Samsung mentioned in an announcement.

The appointment comes as Samsung, the world’s greatest maker of reminiscence chips and smartphones, faces mounting enterprise headwinds amid a pointy downturn in worldwide tech demand, brought on by hovering inflation, rates of interest and a gloomy financial outlook.

Samsung reported a 31 p.c drop in third-quarter revenue on Thursday and mentioned geopolitical uncertainties have been prone to dampen demand till early 2023, as the worldwide financial downturn slashed urge for food for digital units.