Kim Seung-youn made his first public appearance in five years a week ago, when the Hanwha chairman toured an aerospace lab in Daejeon and watched his employees play baseball. A few days later, the conglomerate controlled by his billionaire family was in the news for a different reason – a $1 billion takeover bid for Australia’s Austal.

Whether Hanwha, which has operations spanning from energy to finance, is successful in its pursuit of the only major local defence group could very well depend on Kim, 72, and what defence officials in Australia and the United States – where Austal holds plenty of sensitive shipbuilding contracts – make of him.