A SAMSUNG company on Wednesday removed online cartoons attacking a US hedge fund’s founder as a ravenous, big-beaked vulture after Jewish organisations protested similar smears in South Korea’s media.
The hedge fund, Elliott, is opposing a takeover deal between two Samsung companies that critics say will ensure the current generation of Samsung’s founding family retains control over South Korea’s biggest conglomerate.
Samsung C&T, one of the Samsung firms involved in the takeover, posted cartoons online that depicted Elliott’s founder Paul Singer as a vulture-like figure. In one scene, Singer is depicted hiding an axe behind his back while taking money from a man in ragged clothes.
The cartoons were displayed for several weeks on a website set up by Samsung C&T to argue the merits of the takeover deal.
Samsung C&T said the cartoons were a sensitive issue and asked The Associated Press not to publish a story before a crucial shareholder meeting.
It later issued a statement saying offence was unintentional. “We categorically denounce anti-Semitism in all its forms, and we are committed to respect for all individuals,” the statement said.
Jewish organisations last week called on Samsung and South Korea’s government to denounce anti-Semitic stereotypes in local media.
A local business news website withdrew a column in which it called Elliott “Jewish money” and “ruthless and merciless.”
The takeover will be put to a shareholder vote today.
Samsung needs support from at least two third of shareholders.
The vote is likely to be a close contest. Elliott, the third-largest shareholder in Samsung C&T, is not alone in criticising the deal as unfair to minority shareholders. Pension funds in the Netherlands and Canada as well as thousands of minority shareholders in South Korea said they will oppose the takeover.
Samsung says the deal is crucial for the future of the two companies.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s national pension fund, which is the largest shareholder in C&T, has reportedly decided to side with Samsung.
‘IT’S A SHAME SAMSUNG SPAT BECAME ATTACK ON JEWS’
Warship-seizing hedge fund mogul Paul Singer said he wakes up most mornings preparing to do battle.
“Maybe you wake up saying, ‘This is going to be a great day,’” the 70-year-old Singer said in a rare public appearance on Wednesday. “I wake up most days saying, ‘What is it going to be today?’”
Singer is known as much for his pessimistic wit as his take-no-prisoners battles around the globe.
His latest skirmish is with Korean conglomerate Samsung, where his Elliott Management hedge fund has a 7 per cent stake and has drawn local scorn for his opposition to the company’s plan to merge two of its construction subsidiaries.
Local media accounts attacked him for being Jewish and likened him to Shylock from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.”
“It’s a shame that this element of anti-semitism has crept into a business dispute,” Singer said at the CNBC Institutional Investor conference.
“I don’t think the Korean people are anti-semitic,” he said, adding that he’s a big fan of the country and even rooted for Korea in a World Cup match during a 2002 visit.
He also acknowledged that trouble seems to follow him but said “these things don’t arise out of my desire to fight with people.”
He also defended his battle with Argentina — which has refused to pay him the $3 billion it owes him — explaining that he only tried to take control of an Argentine naval frigate in Ghana out of frustration.
The bold effort to take the ship drew global attention to his battle only to backfire on Singer when an international maritime court eventually forced Ghana to release the ship.
“What we missed, I must say, was this was considered to be the flagship of the Argentine navy so they weren’t happy,” he said.
Singer, who had never spoken publicly about his decade-long debt dispute with the South American country, said his firm wants to negotiate with Argentina and is “amenable” to taking a discount on the bonds he owns “if only a negotiation would start.”
Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s president, has refused to sit down at the bargaining table and calls Singer and other holdout creditors “vultures.” But many investors are betting sentiment will shift when a new government is elected in December.
Not Singer. “I have a hope not an expectation”, he said.
Singer also opined on the recent crash in China’s “wild” markets, saying its collapse will rival the subprime bust that ushered in the 2008 global financial crisis. “The stories that will come out of this will be absolutely fantastic,” he predicted.
“All phenomenon in China tend to be big,” said Singer.
This article originally appeared on New York Post.
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