Interlocking Ownership in the Korean Chaebol

This paper analyses how a dominant entrepreneur of the Korean chaebol is able to exercise control, despite having a tiny shareholding, through strategic interlocking ownership. The entrepreneur organises his intimate group, consisting of three clusters of in‐house shareholders, and they together have controlling interests in only a few subsidiaries, mainly public companies. These central subsidiaries, as quasi‐holding companies, control most other member companies. The resultant ownership structure resembles a grid, in which individual subsidiaries’ ownership structures are intermingled.