Kim Seong-tae, former chairman of SsangBul Group, is at the center of various suspicions.
Although he is the de facto owner of SsangBul Group, he did not assume the position of a registered director, which requires legal responsibility.
Instead, he conducted so-called 'shadow management' by placing family members, close relatives, and close aides in various parts of SsangBulle's affiliates.
He traced the actual situation of 'family management' by mobilizing all of his family and relatives, from the acquisition of Ssangbull to stock price manipulation and company management.
The beginning of 'Kim Seong-tae Kingdom'... Taking control of the family and soaring stock prices
In January 2010, Ssangbool, a familiar underwear brand, was reduced to a place of stock price manipulation.
Right before the acquisition of Ssangbool, Kim Seong-tae started artificially boosting the stock price to realize a market profit.
From January to July 2010, the stock price was boosted by trading 870,000 shares of Ssangbull stock over 1,400 times, using techniques such as over-the-counter buys, high-price buys, and exhaust orders.
It bought a whopping 8 million shares in December of the same year and 3.75 million shares in February of the following year, accounting for a quarter of the total purchase volume in the market.
In fact, he dominated the capital market and controlled the stock price of the double drop.
If the 'head' in charge of this stock manipulation was Kim Seong-tae, then the 'body' in charge was Kim Seong-tae's younger brother.
He took on the role of a 'main gun' who puts false orders using his sister and wife, Kim Seong-tae's wife's account, etc. together with the price manipulation 'players' composed of Kim Seong-tae's nephew, driver, and hometown juniors.
Kim Seong-tae turned his attention to Ubicom, a listed company on the KOSDAQ following Ssangbull, this time calling his brother-in-law and sister-in-law and instructing them to manipulate the market price.
Family and relatives were mobilized as a stock price manipulation force.
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Since then, the stock price manipulation family has spread throughout the Ssangbull Group.
Kim Seong-tae's wife served as director of Gwanglim, younger brother as director of Ssangbool, and his brother's wife as director of IOK and Gwanglim respectively.
There are also traces of Kim Seong-tae's younger sister, Dong-seo, and even Je-su, who served as directors at affiliates.
The driver, who was like a family member, served as the director of SsangBulle, the seniors from the hometown as the auditor, and the juniors from the hometown as the directors of SsangBall and Gwanglim, and also helped Seongtae Kim's shadow management.
The reason why about 3.5 billion won of affiliate funds flowed to Kim Seong-tae's wife
A suspicious flow of funds last year was caught in the Ssangbull Group, which has a stock price manipulation family.
Kim Sung-tae's wife and acquaintances lent a huge amount of 3.56 billion won to a company called Omokdae Holdings, which is believed to have a stake.
However, there is something strange about this company.
No sales at all for 3 years from 2019, audited.
I borrowed about 19 billion won from savings banks, etc. using Nanos stock, a subsidiary of Ssangdropol, as collateral.
As of the end of last year, the total capital stood at minus 1.7 billion won, and it fell into complete capital erosion.
It is no wonder that the company remains in debt and goes bankrupt at any time.
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As a result of the investigation, it is questionable whether it was a real company in the first place.
When I went to the company address on the audit report and the registered copy, there was only a shared office, but the building manager said, "It seems like it was more than five years ago." paid out.
There was no phone number in the audit report.
The CEO of Omokdae Holdings, whom we met with difficulty, said, "The prosecution has stated all the details."
What is the reason why the funds of SsangBall's affiliates flowed into a ghost company that would not be strange if it went bankrupt?
It is speculated that it might be some kind of slush fund to steal profits from affiliates.
[Attorney Kim Jeong-cheol]
You can think of it as a kind of offshore company created in the name of taking money out of the company you actually control.
It doesn't really exist and there's no real business, so there's absolutely no reason to rent there.
And the Supreme Court precedent is that when a company lends or lends a certain amount of money, it must be secured, and otherwise, it is a business breach of trust.
It's through these fraudulent acts that they get their money out.
Hundreds of millions of loans with company money... Privileges of the double drop owner family?
There is another circumstance where company money was used as a safe deposit box for the owner family.
It was discovered that he had borrowed a large amount of company money using the apartment as collateral.
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This is a certified copy of the apartment register in Oksu-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, owned by the wife of former chairman Kim Seong-tae.
It appears that he bought it in 2004 and lived there since 2007. From 2014 to last year, he set up a mortgage of 840 million won under the name of 'SsangBulle Co., Ltd.'.
Assuming a set ratio of 120%, it can be estimated that the company borrowed about 700 million won.
At the time, Kim Seong-tae did not even have an official title.
He didn't get to a position where he had to take legal responsibility, but when he really needed money, he took advantage of the company money.
The time when the mortgage was set up was three months after Kim Seong-tae was handed over to the trial for stock price manipulation, and it was a time when huge legal expenses were required to decorate a luxurious defense team that had 31 lawyers listed.
It is pointed out by the legal community that it may lead to problems of embezzlement or breach of trust.
Ssangbull's side did not respond to related inquiries.
[Attorney Kim Seon-woong] This
is special support for specially related people.
I lent the company money to my wife for no other reason.
It is said that the CEO handles borrowing money from the company as a collection fee, but he is on the borderline of embezzlement.
Thinking of the company's assets as one's own can directly lead to problems of embezzlement and breach of trust.
A stock-manipulating family who 'remains in business' in the face of flimsy punishment
Minority shareholders who pursued and bought the Kim Sung-tae family's 'eat-and-distance' suffered enormous damage.
However, the court granted Kim Seong-tae a de facto indulgence of 3 years in prison, 5 years of probation, and '0 won' for recovering unfair profits, saying, "Ssangbang is a stable company."
When the stock-manipulation family dominates the management of the company and the suspicious cash flows are continuously captured, it is questionable whether this can be regarded as a stable operation.
The lost trust in the capital market will not be restored unless a system is in place to confiscate undue profits and prevent stock price manipulators from entering listed companies.
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