Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo. [Yonhap]
Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo. [Yonhap]

Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo reflected Saturday on an investment loss suffered 26 years ago, saying he was deeply worried about retail investors being hurt by the recent stock market slump.

In a Facebook post that day, Hong said a fellow lawyer had deceived him into a venture investment around April 2000, during the administration of President Kim Dae-jung. "It was the height of the venture boom," Hong wrote. "I was told that putting 130 million won ($97,400) into shares of an unlisted company would multiply it tenfold, so I persuaded my wife and we invested — only to lose every last won."

Hong said the lawyer had defrauded fellow attorneys in the Seocho-dong legal district out of more than 5 billion won in total. "All the lawyers who were deceived were too embarrassed to speak up, so the whole thing was quietly buried," Hong wrote.

"If word got out that a lawyer had been swindled, how could that lawyer keep practicing?" Hong added. "Since then, I have never once invested in stocks."

Expressing concern for retail investors, Hong said he hoped the market would grow steadily in line with the real economy. "AI and semiconductor demand have exploded and the stock market is enjoying a temporary boom, but I would like to see the share price index grow calmly in a way that reflects the real economy," Hong wrote.


yul@heraldcorp.com