Tally shows S. Korea's companies mostly "middle-aged"

By KH디지털2

Published : July 6, 2016 - 10:49

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Close to half of Korea's top 500 companies are over 40 years old while less than 20 percent of them are young aspirants, a corporate analysis showed Wednesday, an indication that the country's corporate community is pretty much static.

Business evaluation site CEO Score tallied the age of the 500 firms ranked by sales and found they averaged 37.6 years old. The birth date of the firms were measured by the date of their corporate registration, and state firms and companies formed through mergers and acquisitions were excluded from the tally.

Banks and pharmaceutical companies tended to be in the older group, while firms in services, telecommunication, energy and retail were younger.

This April 2, 2016, photo shows a Woori Bank branch in Seoul. The bank was ranked the oldest South Korean company in an analysis by CEO Score on July 6. (Yonhap)

Woori Bank was the only centenarian and the oldest of them all at 105. The lender is actually 117 years old when counting back to the original entity whose registration number went missing. Meritz Fire & Marine came second at 94, surviving two name changes.

The youngest was the 5-year-old Dongducheon Dream Power, an operator of LNG power plants.

The analysis showed 45.3 percent of the companies were aged 40 and over, including 33.6 percent aged between 40 and 60. This group forms the crux of Korea's corporate world, including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and POSCO. Another 10.1 percent were aged between 60 and 80, and 1.3 percent between 80 and 100.

These figures suggest there have not been active entries and exits in the corporate community, with the business world gravitating more around large aging conglomerates, analyzers noted.

A bit younger group of 20-40 accounted for 36.8 percent. This tier includes Hyundai Mobis, Samsung Engineering, Korea Telecom, SK Telecom and Asiana Airlines.

Eighteen firms had less than 20 years of history, including LG Uplus, NCSoft, Naver, CJ CGV and Hyundai Department Store. (Yonhap)

Tally shows S. Korea's companies mostly "middle-aged"

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