In the closest event the 60-year-old republic has seen to a royal abdication, South Korea was agog on Tuesday morning as scandal-struck Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee announced his resignation. The gossip now is all about what drove him to it, whether he will really give up power - and whether his son, heir apparent Lee Jae-yong, will return to become the third-generation chairman of Korea's mightiest chaebol, or family-run conglomerate.
In a nation where the power and influence of big business is massive, the announcement was unprecedented. Some idea of the influence wielded by Lee, 66, may be gleaned from the nicknames applied to him and the family business: Lee has been dubbed 'the most powerful man in Korea'; the country, in turn, is sometimes referred to as 'the Republic of Samsung'.
'This is a complete surprise,' a Samsung employee said of Lee's bombshell. 'We are all very shocked.'
Tom Coyner, author of Mastering Business in Korea, added: 'I can't think of another case like it. The era of the 'masters of the universe' is coming to an end.'
Lee Kun-hee took over the chairmanship of the group in 1987 after the death of his father, Lee Byung-chul, who had founded Samsung ('Three Stars') as a trading company in colonial Korea in 1938. The founder helmed Samsung through its early years of growth, entering retail, media, electronics, construction and shipbuilding.
But it was Lee Kun-hee who oversaw the group's ascent on the value chain. After realising that Samsung products were seen as cheap commodities in US retail outlets, he famously ordered senior managers to 'change everything except your wife and kids'.