Chaebol the claim that in order to be a competitive economy more power must be given to the chaebol. In recent years, the leading political parties of South Korea have reversed their pro-large corporate stance to one of economic diversification. Under Kim Dae-Jung and in the wake of the 1997 Asian Financial crisis, many reforms were made to the chaebol. Most of these changes pertained to corporate structure, transparency in financial reporting, corporate governance, and debt stabilization. In 1997, the IMF provided a bailout loan of $60 billion conditional on revision. Distressed financial institutions were to be closed down and those
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