LS Group expected to announce executive reshuffle this week — will a second third-generation vice chairman emerge?

Attention is turning to whether Koo Bon-kyu, president and CEO of LS Cable & System, will be promoted to vice chairman as LS Group prepares for its senior executive reshuffle. Koo Bon-hyuk, CEO of Inveni (formerly Yesco Holdings), became the first among the group's third-generation heirs to reach vice chairman, and Koo Bon-kyu is now being mentioned as the next candidate for promotion. While most of the group's key affiliate executives are expected to retain their posts, the generational transition within the founding family is shaping up to be the main point of interest in this year's reshuffle.

LS Group is expected to move up its annual personnel review — typically held in late November — to the first week of November, according to industry sources. The reshuffle is seen as likely to emphasize continuity over leadership changes at major affiliates. At LS Electric, which has been riding a boom driven by growing investment in power infrastructure, CEO Chae Dae-seok is expected to stay on for now.

Industry attention is focused on whether the third-generation heirs will receive promotions. Koo Bon-kyu, born in 1979, is two years younger than Vice Chairman Koo Bon-hyuk, who was born in 1977 and was elevated to vice chairman through the executive reshuffle announced in 2024 for the 2025 fiscal year. Koo Dong-hwi, CEO of LS MnM, was born in 1982. Looking at the promotion trajectory of third-generation executives within the group by age, Koo Bon-kyu is seen as the natural next candidate to follow Koo Bon-hyuk.

LS Cable & System, led by Koo Bon-kyu, has been landing a string of orders on the back of expanding AI infrastructure demand. As a result, Gaon Cable, a subsidiary of LS Cable & System, posted an operating profit of 52 billion won ($38.9 million) in the third quarter — a record high on a quarterly basis. Another subsidiary, LS Eco Energy, recorded an operating profit of 22.2 billion won in the third quarter, up 50.2 percent from the same period a year earlier. The strong earnings are seen as likely to work in Koo Bon-kyu's favor for a promotion.

LS Group has long divided responsibilities between the founding family and professional managers, pursuing personnel decisions centered on organizational stability and performance. In the executive reshuffle announced at the end of 2022 for the 2023 fiscal year, Koo Bon-kyu was promoted from executive vice president to president, while professional managers Myung Noh-hyun, then president of LS Co., and Do Seok-gu, then president of LS MnM, were both elevated to vice chairman. Myung has since led the group as CEO of LS Co., the holding company.

Should Koo Bon-kyu be promoted to vice chairman in this round, the generational shift at LS Group would become more pronounced — and scrutiny over the group's future succession would intensify.

That said, the order in which third-generation heirs are promoted does not directly determine who will lead the group next. LS Group was spun off from LG Group in 2003 by the families of the late honorary chairmen Koo Tae-hoe, Koo Pyung-hoe and Koo Doo-hoe, and has since maintained a cousin co-management structure. The chairmanship has rotated among family members — founding Chairman Koo Ja-hong was followed by Koo Ja-yeol and then current Chairman Koo Ja-eun, each serving roughly nine years.

Current Chairman Koo Ja-eun's term runs through 2030. As that deadline approaches, questions about who will take over are bound to grow louder. Among the third-generation executives, Vice Chairman Koo Bon-hyuk, President Koo Bon-kyu and CEO Koo Dong-hwi have all established themselves as key figures, but predicting the succession based on age alone is difficult given the need to weigh each affiliate's business performance, shareholding structure and the interests of the various family branches.

That complexity is part of why a potential spinoff is being raised in the context of third-generation management. The cousin co-management model helped prevent ownership disputes in the group's early years and maintained cohesion, but analysts note that as the generation turns, the expanding number of family members and the dispersal of shareholdings could make it harder to sustain the existing structure. "The synergies among power infrastructure businesses — cables, power equipment and the like — are clear enough that a spinoff would not be easy to pursue," one industry official said. "But given how much LS Cable & System and LS Electric have grown in sales compared with previous years, the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely."