Park Yong-oh was found dead at his Seoul home in what appeared to be a suicide, the Yonhap news agency said, citing police.

Police said they were trying to determine whether Park committed suicide. Officials at Seoul National University hospital confirmed his death but did not cite a cause. Park had suffered from a heart problem, said hospital spokesman Lim Jong-pil.

Doosan Group officials said they could not immediately confirm the report that Park killed himself.

If confirmed, Park's suicide would be the latest in a string of high-profile South Koreans taking their own lives.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun jumped off a cliff to his death in May. At the time, he and his family were being investigated for allegedly taking $6 million from a businessman while Roh was president.

Last year, top South Korean actress Choi Jin-sil committed suicide, weeks after a fellow actor killed himself.

Park, 72, had been chief executive of the Doosan Group until a family feud prompted his ouster in 2005. His younger brother, Park Yong-sung, took over as chairman.

In 2006, however, they and two other brothers were convicted of embezzling company funds and received suspended prison terms. Park Yong-sung later received a presidential amnesty, though the other brothers did not, according to the Justice Ministry.

Park Yong-sung is a former member of the International Olympic Committee and International Judo Federation.

The Doosan Group is one of South Korea's largest conglomerates, with 15 subsidiaries operating businesses that sell everything from food to clothes and real estate. The firm also owns nuclear power plants and light construction equipment.

Bobcat Co., a West Fargo, North Dakota-based maker of small loaders and light construction equipment, is owned by Doosan Infracore International, a subsidiary of Doosan Group company Doosan Infracore.

The current chairman of Doosan Group is Park Yong-hyun, who was not charged or convicted with his brothers in 2006.

South Korea, a nation of 49 million people, has the highest rate of suicide among nations belonging to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD currently lists 30 member nations.

In perhaps the country's most sensational suicide by a businessman, Chung Mong-hun, a top executive in the Hyundai conglomerate, leapt from his office window to his death in 2003.

Chung was on trial on charges stemming from allegations that his company, Hyundai Asan, helped former President Kim Dae-jung's government secretly pay North Korea to get Pyongyang to agree to a historic 2000 summit between the Koreas.