Ex-Samsung startup head's Archegos job ends after 3 mths

A former startup investment head of Samsung Electronics Co. has wrapped up his brief career in the asset management industry, following Archegos Capital Management LP's liquidation in the aftermath of massive margin call defaults late last month.

David Eun joined Archegos as executive vice chairman in January of this year, after spending almost nine years at Samsung as its first chief innovation officer and leading its venture Samsung Next as president between January 2012 and December 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The collapse of the US family office fund run by former hedge fund manager Bill Hwang, a Korean immigrant, came shortly after Eun made his foray into asset management after working over 20 years in media and technology companies as a senior manager. 

His account of the new job at Archegos has been deleted from his LinkedIn page since last Friday. The above image was captured previously. 

It was not known if he had engaged in the derivatives trades at the center of the forced liquidation of more than $20 billion worth of positions linked to Archegos. He was not immediately reached for comment.

Eun, a graduate of Harvard law school, began his career as a consultant at Bain & Compay and worked for media companies such as NBC and Time Warner, as well as online portals Google and AOL.

Prior to joining Archegos, he had no experience in asset management, let alone hedge funds.

"Considering the timing of his joining Archegos Capital, it seems quite unlikely he was directly involved in Bill Hwang's investment decisions," said an investment banking source in Seoul.

Archegos Capital was founded by former Tiger Management analyst Bill Hwang. Its massively leveraged bets on US media companies went awry following a tumble in some of the stocks, including Viacom. That triggered huge margin calls on loans from several global investment banks, including Credit Suisse, Nomura Holdings, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

After Archegos failed to meet the margin calls, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley dumped the shares they received as collateral from the family office, sending shockwaves through US stock markets.

Credit Suisse and Nomura are estimated to have lost $4.7 billion and $2 billion, respectively, in relation to their exposure to Archegos, according to Wall Street analysts.

Eun joined Samsung as vice president at the end of 2011 and was appointed as head of Samsung's investment operations, currently known as Samsung Next, in 2013. He became Samsung's youngest president at the age of 49 in 2016 and was promoted as Samsung's first chief innovation officer in 2018.

During his tenure at Samsung, he worked on the acquisition of SmartThings, an Internet of things platform in 2014 and the purchase of LoopPay, a US mobile payment app, in 2015.

Write to Chang Jae Yoo at yoocool@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.