Seoul-Just weeks before the Daewoo Group collapsed in June 1999, its ex-chairman Kim Woo-choong sold off Daewoo Information Systems at a bargain price to his high school junior.

The unit, sold at 25 billion won to a Hong Kong-based investment firm known as KMC, was one of the profitable Daewoo subsidiaries, with 300 billion won in sales and 7 billion won in operating income.

In 1999, Daewoo Group narrowly escaped becoming the nation’s largest bankruptcy when domestic creditor banks agreed to delay repayment of its short-term debt and extend new loans. In return for the emergency aid, Daewoo had been trying to cut its debt drastically by selling or spinning off all but 12 of its 25 subsidiaries.