Korea's corporate groups run on a handful of concepts that have no clean English equivalent. Here they are in plain English — each anchored to the real public filings, not generic theory.
The single person — or, occasionally, an entity — that Korea's Fair Trade Commission designates as the apex of a business group. The dong-il-in (“same person”) is who the whole group is legally deemed to be controlled by.
A controlling shareholder plus every affiliate under their common control — what English-language coverage calls a chaebol. Membership is defined and published annually, not self-declared.
A loop where company A owns B, B owns C, and C owns A again. The ring lets a group hold itself up, locking in control without the family putting in fresh capital.
The gap between how much of a company the family actually owns (cash-flow rights) and how much they control (votes). A small stake, amplified through the group, can command a large bloc.
Figures cite the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC, 공정거래위원회) 2026 designation unless noted. “Korea discount” reflects the dominant view among analysts that governance opacity weighs on valuations; academic studies offer counter-evidence, and nothing here asserts causation. English names follow official KFTC romanizations, lightly cleaned for the key entities.