Miracle on the Han River brief compared to other countries who experienced similar situations. Chaebol refers to corporate groups in South Korea, mainly run by families, that exercise monopolist or oligopolist control over product lines and industries. They can be compared with conglomerates of the United States and the Zaibatsu of Japan. Sometimes the Korean military itself is considered a chaebol. During the industrialization period of South Korea, President Park Chung-hee supported the rise of chaebol groups, facilitating the growth of these groups in order to trigger economic growth. Inside the operations of chaebol groups, there are many branches that family members control and operate.
Chaebol the enhancement of management transparency, strengthening owner-manager accountability, elimination of cross-debt guarantees among chaebol affiliates, improvement of capital structures, and consolidation of core business areas. In his plans, debt to equity ratios were to be below 200%. Subsidiaries of chaebol that were debt-laden or on the verge of bankruptcy were instructed to be either liquidated, sold, or put up for merger. Each chaebol-holding group had to break up its subsidiaries and operations so that they were more manageable. By the end of 1997, each had an average of 26.8 subsidiaries. It was hoped that if there were fewer activities, the