A South Korean asset manager has been found dead in the country's latest apparent suicide linked to the global financial crisis, police said on November 20. Police found the body of the 55-year-old head of a small asset management firm, identified only as Choi, in a Seoul hotel room on Wednesday afternoon.
"Having been under pressure from the cash crunch since August last year from the US subprime mortgage crisis, I worked hard to have my investors at least recover their principal," Yonhap news agency quoted a note he left as saying. "I feel sorry to my friends for failing to achieve that. I'd like to pay my debt back by death."
Choi had checked in on Sunday afternoon. Sleeping pills and liquor were found in his room along with the note, said officer Choi Yeong-guk of Gangnam police station in southern Seoul. The extent of Choi's losses and the number of investors involved was not known. He established the asset firm in 2000 with funds from about a dozen people he knew from college, Yonhap said.