Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics, returned to Korea on the 14th after attending the Sun Valley Conference this year. The Sun Valley Conference is known as a social gathering where global business tycoons converge.
Lee returned early in the morning through the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center (SGBAC) and spoke with reporters, noting, "I am tired after a busy schedule."
To a question about the outlook for improved performance in the second half, he briefly replied, "I will work hard" before leaving the scene.
In the second quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics recorded an operating profit of 4.6 trillion won, a 55.9% plunge compared to the same period last year. This is interpreted as being significantly affected by a decline in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) competitiveness and a drop in foundry utilization rates due to U.S. sanctions.
During this time, Lee attended the Sun Valley Conference held from the 9th to the 13th (local time) at the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho, USA. The international business conference has been hosted annually in early July by the U.S. investment bank Allen & Company since 1983, officially named the "Allen & Company Conference."
Although it is a private event, it is also known as the "billionaires' social club" as major invitees include global media and IT industry moguls. This year's event reportedly included Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Lee has attended this event annually since 2002, when he was an executive at Samsung Electronics. In particular, in 2014, he met with Apple's CEO Cook at the Sun Valley, and Samsung Electronics and Apple withdrew their smartphone patent lawsuits outside the U.S.
In 2017, while under detention, Lee mentioned in court, "Sun Valley is the busiest business trip of the year and the one I am most concerned about." However, he has been unable to attend the Sun Valley Conference since 2017 due to investigations, trials, and imprisonment related to the "state scandal case." Lee was acquitted in the 1st and 2nd trials on charges of unfair mergers and accounting fraud and is awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court on the 17th.
Meanwhile, Lee Won-jin, president of Samsung Electronics' global marketing office, was also spotted attending the event.