Koo In-hwoi (, 26 August 1906 – 31 December 1969) was a South Korean businessman and the co-founder of LG Group,[1] one of the largest chaebols in South Korea.
Life
Koo In-hwoi is the 14th generation descendant of Gu Sa-min, the younger brother of Gu Sa-maeng as well the uncle of Queen Inheon. Both of them were 12th generation descendants of Gu Seong-ro, an officer who accompanied Yi Seong-gye during Wihwado Retreat.
After completing his secondary education at the Central Normal Higher School, Seoul in 1924, he soon made his start as a businessman. He returned to his hometown in 1926, and quickly went on to head the village's business cooperative union while also trading miscellaneous goods. The following year, he became head of the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper's branch office in Jisu. In 1931, he opened a store along with younger brother Koo Chul-hwoi in Jinju, South Gyeongsang. Things didn't go as planned, and it suffered huge losses. But instead of taking that first defeat to heart, he tried again by getting loans while putting up the family's property as collateral. His fortune began to build as a result of this trial and error.
As his businesses gradually expanded, in 1941 he made a sizeable contribution to the Korean provisional government in Shanghai through an independence fighter who visited him. His father had done the same a decade earlier, when he donated to the famous Korean independence fighter