Daewoo Daewoo Daewoo (, literally "Great Woo", after the first name of founder and chairman Kim Woo-jung) or the Daewoo Group was a major South Korean conglomerate and car manufacturer. It was founded on 22 March 1967 as "Daewoo Industrial" and was declared bankrupt on 1 November 1999. Prior to the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo was the second largest conglomerate in Korea after Hyundai Group, followed by LG Group and Samsung. There were about 20 divisions under the Daewoo Group, some of which survive today as independent companies. There were about 20 divisions in the Daewoo Group. Daewoo Group had under
Daewoo and the government reduced positive discrimination (affirmative action), to encourage free market trade and to force the chaebol to be more aggressive abroad. Daewoo responded by establishing a number of joint ventures with U.S. and European companies. It expanded exports of machine tools, defense products (under the S&T Daewoo company), aerospace interests, and semiconductor design and manufacturing. Eventually, it began to build civilian helicopters and airplanes, priced considerably cheaper than those produced by its U.S. counterparts. It also expanded efforts in the automotive industry and was ranked as the seventh largest car exporter and the sixth largest car manufacturer in