SEOUL: Samsung Electronics Co promoted Lee Jae-yong, son of the former chairman, in a reorganization investor activists said was part of a succession plan to place the scion at the helm of South Korea's largest industrial group.

Asia's largest maker of chips, flat-screens and mobile- phones, yesterday said it promoted the 41-year-old Lee to executive vice-president and chief operating officer. Choi Gee-sung, 58, replaces Lee Yoon-woo, 63, as chief executive officer, parent Samsung Group said in a statement yesterday.

Lee's ascent comes less than four months after Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea's largest carmaker, promoted the chairman's son. The International Monetary Fund cited the family-run chaebol business model and its debt-driven practices as part of the reason the Asian country's economy fell into financial crisis at the end of 1997.