Cheon Shin-il, chairman of Sejoong Group and chair of the Our Old Stone Cultural Foundation, died of a long illness on the 17th. He was 83.
According to the business community on the 18th, the deceased, born in 1943 in Busan, graduated from Gyeongnam High School and the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University. He went on to found Jecheol Chemical in 1974, the nation's first coal-chemical corporations, and is regarded in business circles as a figure who, after founding Sejoong in 1982, grew it into a group focused on travel, information technology (IT) and consulting.
The deceased was also well known for a long association with former President Lee Myung-bak. As classmates who entered Korea University in 1961 and members of the "June 3 Comrades Association," who together joined protests against the normalization of diplomatic ties between Korea and Japan, they are said to have maintained a special relationship for many years. In 2024, when the deceased received an honorary doctorate in engineering from Pohang University of Science and Technology POSTECH, the former president visited the site and offered congratulatory remarks.
At the event, the former president said, "Chairman Cheon Shin-il lived his life demonstrating an entrepreneurial spirit that served as a model," adding, "Corporations exist to make money, but just as important is how that money is used, and in that respect Chairman Cheon became an example."
The deceased was also known as someone who built a close relationship with the late Lee Byung-chul, the founding chairman of Samsung Group. Cheon earned trust by attending to even Lee Byung-chul's personal affairs, and it is said that Samsung's support was not insignificant as Sejoong Group grew. He also served as president of the Korea Wrestling Federation and as auditor and standing member of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee at the recommendation of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
Cheon also had deep ties with the late Park Tae-joon, honorary chairman of POSCO. When he founded Jecheol Chemical in 1974, the deceased donated part of the company's equity to the Jecheol Scholarship Foundation (now the POSCO Cheongam Foundation), and on that basis, he provided more than 63,000 pyeong of land for the establishment of Pohang University of Science and Technology POSTECH in 1985.
The deceased was also widely known as a collector of traditional stone relics and cultural assets. Based on more than 2,000 traditional stone artifacts collected over his lifetime, he opened the Sejoong Old Stone Museum in Yongin, Gyeonggi, in 2000. In 2015, he relocated it to Seongbuk-dong, Seoul, and reopened it as the Our Old Stone Museum. He also worked to bring back stone cultural assets taken overseas, and in recognition of these efforts received the Order of Civil Merit, Pomegranate Medal, in 2002 for meritorious service in repatriating cultural properties taken to Japan.
He is survived by his wife, Jeon Gyeong-ja, 77; daughter Cheon Mi-jeon, 53, director of the Our Old Stone Museum; elder son Cheon Se-jeon, 52, president of Sejoong; and younger son Cheon Ho-jeon, 47, vice president of Sejoong. The wake is being held at Seoul National University Hospital's funeral hall, and the funeral will be at 7 a.m. on the 20th. The burial site is the family plot at Seoul Memorial Park.