Wednesday, November 5th 2014
Zalman Files for Bankruptcy for Major Financial Fraud by Parent Company
Popular PC cooling products maker Zalman filed for bankruptcy, in midst of a huge controversy by its parent company Moneual. Executives of Moneual cooked-up sales and export figures from Zalman to markets like the United States, in a bid to pick up large fraudulent loans for the company, which it could never pay off, pushing it to bankruptcy.
The controversy came to light, when a whistleblower former-employee of Moneual took these details to the press. It's alleged that CEO Harold Park (Hong-seok), Vice President Scott Park (Min-seok) and Vice President Won Duck-yeok committed a fraud, in which subsidiary Zalman would inflate its sales and export data, to qualify for large bank loans. The trio then used it to lift US $2.92 billion in loans, which the company could never pay back. Zalman has since filed for bankruptcy protection, with the Seoul Central District Court; while the three top Moneual executives, and 13 other mid-level ones, were arrested over allegations of export fraud.
Source:
Futurelooks
The controversy came to light, when a whistleblower former-employee of Moneual took these details to the press. It's alleged that CEO Harold Park (Hong-seok), Vice President Scott Park (Min-seok) and Vice President Won Duck-yeok committed a fraud, in which subsidiary Zalman would inflate its sales and export data, to qualify for large bank loans. The trio then used it to lift US $2.92 billion in loans, which the company could never pay back. Zalman has since filed for bankruptcy protection, with the Seoul Central District Court; while the three top Moneual executives, and 13 other mid-level ones, were arrested over allegations of export fraud.
39 Comments on Zalman Files for Bankruptcy for Major Financial Fraud by Parent Company
Was the fraud attempt to save it, or to steal money?
zalman is old player and thats kinda sad.
Zalman made many niche designs and custom designs, good ones, but usually for a premium price. Problem is with soo many players and performance being obtainable by products at lesser price brackets, Zalman competing on name just can't work. Specially not when you have CM and others who strike great price for performance ratios and rake in all the press.
Zalman didn't change with time. Nor did they keep their name out there strong enough. Probably have management that figured they'd run forever on their name. Got lazy, then lost in the sea of competitors.
I honestly looked at Zalmans many times over the years but always went with a competitor because the price premium for the Zalmans were too high for what you got. Everyone would swear by them, but reviews wouldn't lie.
Their coolers are over-priced with bad competability, most of their cases are mediocre at best.
Just... no. It's time to go.
Zalman made some good gear. Yes it cost more but it worked.
Unlike thermal mistake there low noise coolers where low noise.
Compadability and brackets etc where a pain in the backside.
I was very annoyed I could not use my zalman CNPS9700 on my socket 1150 board. I had for ages.
Recently I had forgotten to replug the fan on my 9900Max. I spent almost a week playing games, watching videos, and even a 20 minute run of Prime95. My 3770k never overheated with just case airflow over the zalman heatsink, despite my forgetting to plug the heatsink fan in! It was only because I noticed the fan RPM's were 0 that I even investigated.
As far as that is concerned, that is a good heatsink design. So yeah, I'm interested in the company future and if they survive the shenanigans and criminal action of their parent, and I hope they come through this in some form.
Imho its sad to see this manufacturer suffer for the greed of their parent company. They seemed to be one of those companies that were set on just doing stuff their own way; providing the market with much needed alternatives and occasionally keeping the other players on their toes.
The old CNPS 7000 cu was also a jewel i run for the longest time...
Sad to see them going...
I could see Zalman getting bought out by another company for pennies on the dollar.
A friend of mine has one of these coolers on his i5 3570K and it looks cool along with being great on performance so from my perspective they make quality products. Its a shame that this is happening to them because we might lose them for good.