Jewish-controlled hedge fund attempts to disrupt Korean merger

ON JULY 17, the shareholders of Samsung C&T, a construction company that is part of the vast, sprawling corporate empire under the control of Samsung Group, are set to vote on a merger with Cheil Industries, another Samsung subsidiary. The merger is part of a complicated consolidation underway within the conglomerate’s network of some 80 interlinked companies that is meant to secure control of the company in the hands of its founding family ahead of the expected death of its 73-year-old patriarch and Samsung Group chairman — and South Korea’s richest man — Lee Kun-hee. (ILLUSTRATION: Paul Singer)

The most outspoken critic of the merger, New York-based hedge fund Elliott Associates, which owns 7 percent of Samsung C&T, has charged that the merger’s terms dramatically undervalue C&T’s stock, effectively favoring the shareholders of Cheil, which is 42% owned by the Lee family, according to media reports. The Lee family would control the post-merger company. …

One South Korean news site, Mediapen.com, has been outspoken on the C&T-Cheil merger. At the time of writing, Wednesday evening, the site had no fewer than five articles about Samsung on its homepage, one a glowing profile of Samsung’s corporate leadership and the other four expressing support for the merger.

Among these was a Sunday column by journalist Kim Ji-ho (Korean-language link), who framed the Elliott-Samsung feud in stark terms.

“Jews are known to wield enormous power on Wall Street and in global financial circles,” Kim began. “It is a well-known fact that the US government is swayed by Jewish capital.”

Railing against Institutional Shareholder Services, or ISS, a proxy advisory firm that published an analysis of the merger that agreed with Elliott’s claims of C&T’s undervaluation, Kim explained to Mediapen’s readers that ISS was moved to side with Elliott because both represented “Jewish money.”

“The rationale for the assumption that ISS will be supportive of Elliott’s claims is that ISS, like Elliott, is founded upon Jewish money. Elliott’s CEO is Paul Singer, a Jew. ISS is an affiliate of MSCI, which is owned by Jewish major shareholders,” he wrote. And he added: “ISS’s opposition to the merger can be interpreted along the lines of Jewish alliance. Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless.” …

Samsung itself advertises on Mediapen, offers interviews and media access, and receives almost total support from the site’s reporters and columnists. But Mediapen is nevertheless not one of South Korea’s major media outlets.

Seoul-based MoneyToday is.

In a June 22 report (Korean-language link) about Samsung’s response to the ISS report, the site explained why ISS might not be an objective party in the merger dispute.

“According to the finance industry, the fact that Elliott and ISS are both Jewish institutions cannot be ignored,” it reported. “Elliott is led by a Jew, Paul E. Singer, and ISS is an affiliate of Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), whose key shareholders are Jewish. According to a source in the finance industry, Jews have a robust network demonstrating influence in a number of domains.”

The report on the mainstream MoneyToday was published almost two weeks before the appearance of the Mediapen report.

And there is no sign that the narrative of Samsung being victimized by a global cabal of Jewish financiers is dying down. The South Korean daily Munwha Ilbo followed up on Tuesday with a report headlined: “‘Jewish ISS’ blatantly supported ‘Jewish Elliott.’”

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Source: Read the full article at the Times of Israel