The person with the most assets among domestic wealthy individuals is Kim Byung-joo, chairman of MBK Partners. Chairman Kim has maintained the top position in the country for several years.
Notably, Chairman Kim's global wealthy ranking has risen 27 places in a month. While other wealthy individuals whose assets consist mostly of listed shares see their wealth significantly decrease whenever their company stock prices plummet, MBK Partners is not a listed company, so changes in Chairman Kim's assets are not reflected in real time.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 8th, Chairman Kim ranked 253rd in the global wealth rankings compiled in real time by the economic media Forbes. This is 27 places higher than the rank (280th) announced by Forbes a month earlier on March 7.
Chairman Kim's asset size remains at $9.8 billion (approximately 14.4 trillion won), unchanged from a month ago. Nevertheless, the rise in his ranking is interpreted as a result of a decrease in the asset values of other wealthy individuals.
The assets of the world's top billionaires consist largely of company stocks and fluctuate in real time as stock prices rise and fall. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, who was the second richest person in the world last month, saw his assets decrease from $216 billion (approximately 317.95 trillion won) to $178.8 billion (approximately 263.19 trillion won) in a month. This is attributed to a decline of around 14% in Meta's stock price over the past month.
In contrast, Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York and the 11th richest person in the world, has assets of $10.47 billion (approximately 154.14 trillion won), unchanged from a month ago. This is interpreted because his company, Bloomberg L.P., holds 88% equity and is privately held. Similarly, Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, also maintains his asset size at $6.55 billion (approximately 96.43 trillion won), which is also related to the fact that ByteDance is a private company.
In the case of Chairman Kim, specific details on how his assets are structured are not known, but since MBK Partners itself is not a publicly traded company, the reported asset size does not seem to correlate with stock price fluctuations.
Chairman Kim entered the global billionaire rankings in 2022 when he sold a 12.5% equity stake in MBK Partners' operating subsidiary for approximately $1.18 billion. At that time, the company's total value was assessed at $9.5 billion.
However, a representative from MBK Partners noted, 'It seems to distort the value of the privately held MBK Partners by equating it with Chairman Kim's personal asset value,' adding, 'We hope there's no misunderstanding regarding one-sided rankings that have no evaluation criteria.'
Meanwhile, Chairman Kim holds U.S. nationality, so he does not officially appear in the 'Korean wealthy' rankings. Among those with Korean nationality, the wealthiest person is Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics. As of that day, his real-time ranking was 349th, with assets valued at $8 billion (approximately 11.8 trillion won), an increase of 20 places from the previous month (820 million dollars, 369th).
In the case of Cho Jung-ho, chairman of Meriz Financial Group, he was ranked 361st (with $8.4 billion) worldwide a month ago, following Chairman Kim, but is now ranked 362nd (with $7.9 billion). Seo Jeong-jin, chairman of Celltrion, is recorded at 497th (with $6.4 billion), and Chung Mong-koo, honorary chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, at 879th (with $3.9 billion).
In addition, Hong Ra-hee, honorary director of the Leeum Museum of Art, is ranked 1061st (with $3.3 billion), Kim Beom-soo, founder of Kakao, is ranked 1081st (with $3.3 billion), and Lee Boo-jin, president of Hotel Shilla, is ranked 1105th (with $3.2 billion).