Samsung and ‘the Jews of Wall Street’: Korean Takeover Fight Gets Uglier

Criticism of billionaire corporate raider and hedge fund boss Paul Singer, painted in the S. Korean press as one of a cabal of ‘ruthless’ Jews

AS A FIERCE merger fight between Samsung Group’s Lee family and activist investor Paul Elliott Singer has raged in South Korea, the Lees have marshaled their best arguments for the deal, splashed ads on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, and courted minority shareholders in person. (ILLUSTRATION: Paul Elliott Singer, nemesis of Samsung’s Lee family and target of “anti-Semitic” press in South Korea.)

Oh, and announced that they aren’t anti-Semites.

With Friday’s vote on the takeover bid fast approaching, critics of Elliott Associates have come out of the woodwork in recent weeks with anti-Semitic diatribes against the billionaire and others. After three Korean publications ran stories attacking Jews seeking to thwart Samsung—one called Jews “ruthless and merciless”—the chief executive officers of the Lees’ de facto holding company, Cheil Industries, and Samsung C&T issued statements to the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center over the weekend.

“We are a company that is committed to respect for individuals and [that] enforces strict non-discrimination policies,” they wrote. “We condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms.” The ADL welcomed the statement, which it called a “clear and public stand against anti-Semitism.”

Mediapen, a Korean website that published one of the articles, has taken down its story. “It wasn’t really Mediapen’s purpose to arouse any kind of anti-Jewish sentiment at all,” managing editor Lim Chun Sung said in an interview. “We were just trying to explain the origin of Elliott, who they are, and where they came from.”

Sisa Journal, a well-known weekly news magazine, published a story headlined “Samsung’s Caught in the Jewish Financial Powerhouses’ Radar,” purporting to detail how Elliott and other financiers of Jewish descent, such as George Soros and Carl Icahn, have formed a cabal to attack vulnerable countries and companies around the world, with help from Morgan Stanley Capital International.

Elliott Associates is leading the fight against the Lees’ proposed merger of two Samsung companies, in which the Lees’ Cheil is bidding to acquire Samsung C&T, a publicly traded construction company that owns more than $10 billion in shares of Samsung Electronics and other Samsung Group companies. The deal is crucial for the children of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who has been recuperating from a heart attack he suffered in May of last year. The family already controls Cheil. Acquiring Samsung C&T, which owns 4.1 percent of Samsung Electronics, would help it secure control of the group for another generation.

It would seem there are enough issues on the table without bringing in religion, but the familiar slander of Jews as financial schemers has been in full bloom. The Sisa Journal article quoted a former South Korean diplomat in the U.S., an author of a book describing Jewish world domination, who said Jews usually control Wall Street’s hedge funds. A U.S.-educated lawyer told the magazine’s readers: “That the financial powers of Wall Street are dominated by Jews is a well-known fact.” …

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Source: Read the full article at Bloomberg Business