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Japan's flamboyant Internet whizkid all praise for SKorean conglomerates
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  • SEOUL (AFP) Mar 30, 2005
    Takafumi Horie, the brash young Internet entrepreneur who has shocked Japan with an aggressive takeover bid, has praised South Korea's corporate leadership and urged its companies to buy weak Japanese firms.

    Horie, the 32-year-old university dropout who wants to control top-rated Fuji Television, lauded Samsung, the largest of South Korea's powerful conglomerates, and mocked Japan's scandal-plagued Mitsubishi Motors.

    "The Samsung Group has realized such big growth because it has a strong leader," Horie, the founder of the Livedoor Internet firm, told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper in an interview published Wednesday.

    Asked why he wants to "destroy" Japanese corporate culture, Horie said: "They don't have leaders with strong authority. Those who advance to the post of president as wage earners cannot be true leaders."

    "I cannot understand why Mitsubishi units are pumping money equal to their total annual net profits into Mitsubishi Motors Corp," Horie said.

    "It is because the group has no actual leader and has only top managers interested in maintaining their positions," he said. "If the group had a leader, it would have liquidated or sold the automaker."

    Horie, asked if he wanted to invest in South Korea, recommended the opposite, saying: "It is easier to make money in Japan."

    "The disadvantage of Korean companies in Japan is that their brands are not well-recognized. A way to overcome this is to purchase a troubled Japanese company with a major brand. For example, Hyundai Motor Co. could buy Seibu Lions," he said, referring to the financially troubled baseball team.

    Horie has taken corporate Japan aback by wearing a T-shirt as he negotiates with men in suits and boasting that money can get him anything, such as the model who frequently appears on his arm.

    South Korea's top conglomerates were tainted in a widespread probe into illegal funding of politicians that followed the 2002 presidential election.

    The firms have unergone restructuring since their reckless expansion was blamed in part for the country's 1997-1998 financial crisis.

    Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-Hee courted controversy this month by reserving three slopes for his private use in the posh French ski resort of Courchevel.




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