Chaebol played a key role in developing new industries, markets, and export production, helping make South Korea one of the Four Asian Tigers. Although South Korea's major industrial programs did not begin until the early 1960s, the origins of the country's entrepreneurial elite were found in the political economy of the 1950s. Very few Koreans had owned or managed larger corporations during the Japanese colonial period. After the departure of the Japanese in 1945, some Korean businessmen obtained the assets of some of the Japanese firms, a number of which grew into the chaebol of the 1990s. The companies, as well
Chaebol Investigations also exposed widespread corruption in the chaebol, particularly fraudulent accounting and bribery. Still, South Korea recovered quickly from the crisis, and most of the blame for economic problems was shifted to the IMF. The remaining chaebol have grown substantially since the crisis, but they have maintained far lower debt levels. In 2014, the largest chaebol, Samsung, composed about 17% of the South Korean economy and held roughly US$17 billion in cash. However, recent financial statements of these chaebols actually show that chaebols are slowly losing power over either international competition or internal disruptions from newly emerging startups. Net profit/income