There are signs of impending change in the Samsung Group, and all eyes are on group chairman Lee Kun-hee’s son and heir apparent Lee Jae-yong. Lee visited China and Vietnam on the group’s charter plane from Oct. 7 to 12 in what Samsung officially said was his capacity as chief customer officer to visit its business partners there. But a Samsung source said the true purpose of his trip was to map out strategies since China is the world’s biggest market and Vietnam an important emerging one. There is speculation that he made the visit to make a final decision about building a mobile phone plant with production capacity of 100 million handsets. That indicates Lee is doing a job way beyond his official duties as CCO.

Lee has traveled a lot alone this year. In January, he went to the U.S. to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and since then has visited Europe, China, India and Central and South America. He was accompanied by his father only when he went to China in April to extend a contract for Samsung’s Olympics sponsorship and to Guatemala in July, where Lee senior backed Pyeongchang’s bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Based on that, more and more people in the group predict that Samsung will be in the hands of Lee Jae-yong soon.

The time seems ripe. Next year marks the group’s 70th anniversary and the first year that in headquarters in southern Seoul. And Lee junior turns 40.

There are revealing differences in management style between the two Lees. While the senior has stressed cooperation with Japanese companies, the junior emphasizes relationship with U.S. business partners. After he was appointed CCO in January, Lee Jae-yong went to the U.S. and met with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, where they talked about Samsung’s technology development and the global IT industry. Later, at the 3GSM World Congress in Spain, he also met with the CEOs of Hewlett-Packard and AT&T. Many say Lee junior is also more interested in IT devices such as navigators, Bluetooth, and speaker phones as well as semiconductors, LCD and PDP.

There are obstacles. Lee is still waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Samsung Everland case; the quasi-holding company is suspected of having sold him convertibles bonds at below-market prices in an underhand move to transfer group ownership to him. And there is some public criticism over his succession to the group’s crown.

“It may become clear whether the junior Lee will have greater influence over the group late this year or early next year, when the group carries out major personnel shifts and organizational change,” a group source says. “In any cases, since chairman Lee will turn 70 in five years, management succession will become a big issue from next year.” But there can be little doubt that Samsung is already secretly working to pass the chairmanship to Lee junior.

(englishnews@chosun.com )