Ryu Jun Yeol Faces Backlash Over Alleged Capital Gains From Family Business

Ryu Jun Yeol is facing controversy over a multi-billion won real estate flip tied to his family corporation.

The controversy began with the March 8 episode of MBC’s current affairs show. The program reported on a building in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam, sold in 2022 for about ₩15.0 billion KRW (~$10.2M USD).

The seller was a company called Deep Breathing, linked to Ryu Jun Yeol’s family. Ryu was listed as an executive director and his mother as CEO.

Deep Breathing originally bought the property in 2020 for roughly ₩5.80 billion KRW (~$3.96M USD). After tearing down the old building and reselling, they made a huge profit in just two years.

Loans helped seal the deal. Deep Breathing got loans worth about ₩4.80 billion KRW (~$3.27M USD), covering 80% of the purchase price. The actual cash investment was close to ₩1.00 billion KRW (~$682K USD).

A former bank branch manager explained the advantage here:

“For sole proprietors, banks evaluate them, but corporations don’t.”

They called this type of deal “debt-based” wealth building.

Ryu Jun Yeol’s side responded that the corporation was created to manage his income and start a clothing business with a friend. The building business stalled due to COVID-19, so the property was sold.

As the situation unfolded, netizens showed no shock, expecting another controversy from Ryu.

Netizens blasted him:

“Wow suits him, doing so many controversial things…”

“He really is choosing to do hypocritical things.”

“He is so disgusting.”

“Amazing…”

“Not surprised…he looks like he would do something like that.”

“Is there no way to block celebrities from doing this? Is the only way to catch them after going through an investigation? So this isn’t technically illegal?”