A pedestrian walks past a Samsung Electronics billboard in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 24, 2012. (Xinhua/Park Jin-hee)

Lee Kun-hee, the charismatic leader of Samsung Group, South Korea's biggest conglomerate, died on Sunday, the company said in a statement, six years after he was hospitalized for a heart attack.

Lee, who was 78, helped grow his father Lee Byung-chull's noodle trading business into a sprawling powerhouse with assets worth some $375 billion, with dozens of affiliates stretching from electronics and insurance to shipbuilding and construction.

"Lee is such a symbolic figure in South Korea's spectacular rise and how South Korea embraced globalization, that his death will be remembered by so many Koreans," said Chung Sun-sup, chief executive officer of corporate research firm Chaebul.com.

He is the latest second-generation leader of a South Korean family-controlled conglomerate to die, leaving potentially thorny succession issues for the third generation.

Lee's son Jay Y. Lee has been embroiled in legal troubles linked to a merger of two Samsung affiliates that helped Lee assume greater control of the group's flagship Samsung Electronics.

The younger Lee served jail time in his role in a bribery scandal that triggered the impeachment of then-president Park Geun-hye. He is facing a retrial over the case, and a separate trial on charges of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation that kicked off this week.

The death of Lee, South Korea's richest with a net worth of $20.9 billion according to Forbes, is set to prompt investor interest in a potential restructuring of the group involving his stakes in key Samsung companies such as Samsung Life and Samsung Electronics.

Reuters