Lee Ji-ho, commissioned as part of the 139th class of naval officers, was joined by his grandmother Hong Ra-hee, widow of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, and his aunt Lee Seo-hyun, head of the Samsung Welfare Foundation. The event marked one of the few occasions in which Lee and Im were seen together in public in more than a decade.
Lee and Im, heiress to the Daesang Group, share two children — daughter Ji-soo and son Ji-ho. Im is currently in a public relationship with actor Lee Jung-jae.
The junior Lee enlisted in September as an officer candidate and completed 11 weeks of basic training before receiving his commission. After a four-day leave, he will report to the Naval Education and Training Command in Changwon on Dec. 2 for three weeks of initial officer training, after which he is expected to serve as an interpreter officer at the Naval Operations Command in Busan.
The commissioning comes five years after Chairman Lee pledged, at the height of legal proceedings related to his father’s succession, that he would not pass corporate management to his children — declaring an end to Samsung’s third-generation leadership tradition.
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