The Cho family is an entrepreneurial family in South Korea that owns Korean Air, the Meritz Financial Group, Hanjin Heavy Industries Holdings and many more.
Based primarily in Seoul, the multi-generational, multi-business family has repeatedly been in the media due to several disagreements among the family members, primarily with regard to their inheritance left by patriarch Cho Choong-hoon, who passed away in 2002.
Cho Choong-hoon was the founder of the Hanjin Group, a transportation company established in 1945 that aided the American military during World War II. Choong-hoon sought investments and growth over several decades; the transportation aspect of the company, however, ceased after his death.
By 2009, the company had branched out into various types of transportation development and acquired Korean Airlines and Hanjin Shipping.
Controversy has followed the family since the early 2000s, when the children of Choong-hoon – Yang Ho (Korean Airlines), Nam Ho (Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction), Soo Hoo (Hanjin Shipping) and Jung Ho (Meritz Financial) – were each awarded their own company to run.
The brothers were generally unsatisfied with their inheritance and publicly feuded for years. Cho Jung Ho, owner of Meritz Financial, is the only sibling to maintain and grow his business exponentially since his inheritance of the company. The empire he created has made him a billionaire.
