Lotte (conglomerate)

Lotte
ロッテ
롯데
Industry
  • food processing
  • retail
  • financial services
  • electronics
  • petro-chemicals

and more

Founder Shin Kyuk-Ho (Takeo Shigemitsu), Korean
Headquarters Jung District, Seoul, South Korea
Area served
Asia, North America, Europe
Key people
Shin Kyuk-ho, Shin Dongbin , Korean
Revenue ¥3,931,896 million (2011)[1]
¥328,141 million (2011)[1]
¥191,847 million (2011)[1]
Number of employees
South Korea: 180000
Japan: 5000
Website www.lotte.co.jp
Lotte
Korean name
Hangul 롯데

Lotte Co., Ltd. (ロッテ, Hangul: 롯데) is a multinational conglomerate with headquarters in South Korea and Japan. Lotte was first established in June 1948 in Tokyo, by Shin Kyuk-ho(신격호) (also known as Takeo Shigemitsu). With the money he earned in Japan, Shin expanded to his home country, South Korea with the establishment of Lotte Confectionery in Seoul on April 3, 1967. Lotte eventually grew to become South Korea's eighth largest business conglomerate.

Lotte Group consists of over 60 business units employing 60,000 people engaged in such diverse industries as candy manufacturing, beverages, hotels, fast food, retail, financial services, heavy chemicals, electronics, IT, construction, publishing, and entertainment. Lotte's major operations are overseen by Shin's family in Japan and South Korea, with additional businesses in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, USA, UK, Russia, Philippines, Pakistan and Poland (Lotte bought Poland's largest candy company Wedel from Kraft Foods in June 2010). Today, Lotte is the largest confectionery manufacturer in South Korea, and is the third largest in Japan behind Meiji Seika and Ezaki Glico in terms of sales revenue when only the sales of Lotte's confectioneries are counted.

History

Lotte's first company was founded in June 1948 in Tokyo, by Shin Kyuk-ho, two years after he graduated from Waseda Jitsugyo High School (早稲田実業学校). Originally called Lotte Co., Ltd, the company has grown from selling chewing gum to children in post-war Japan to becoming a major multinational corporation.

In June 2016, companies of the group were raided by South Korean prosecutors, investigating into a possible slush fund as well as breach of trust involving transactions among the group's companies.[2] The investigation forced its Hotel Lotte unit to abandon an initial public offering and Lotte Chemical Corp to withdraw from bidding for Axiall Corp.[2] Its Vice Chairman, Lee In-won, was found dead in August same year. He was suspected of suicide just hours before being questioned by prosecutors.[2] Lee was considered the top lieutenant of Chairman Shin Dong bin.[2]

Name

The source of the company's name is neither Korean nor Japanese, but German. Shin was impressed with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and named his newly founded company Lotte after the character Charlotte[3][4] in the novel ("Charlotte" is also the name of a new brand of deluxe movie theatres run by Lotte). Lotte's current marketing slogan in Japan is "The sweetheart of your mouth, Lotte" (お口の恋人,ロッテ Okuchi no koibito, Rotte).

Management

Lotte Holdings Co., Ltd. – Lotte group's world headquarters – are located in Myeongdong, Seoul and Shinjuku, Tokyo. It is controlled by the founder Shin Kyuk-Ho's family.

Business

Lotte World in Seoul
Lotte Young Shopping Plaza in Daegu, South Korea
Song Seung-Jun, South Korean starting pitcher who plays for the Lotte Giants

Lotte group's major businesses are food products, shopping, finance, construction, amusement parks, hotels, trade, oil and sports.

Sports

Lotte also owns professional baseball teams

Lotte R&D Center

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Report 2011
  2. 1 2 3 4 Jin, Hyunjoo; Lee, Se Young (August 26, 2016). "Lotte vice chairman found dead amid probe; suicide suspected". Reuters. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  3. Lottehotel.com
  4. "Korean Chaebols: Lotte. The Origin of the Lotte Name". Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  5. Chevalier, Michel (2012). Luxury Brand Management. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-17176-9.
  6. Lotteshopping.com
  7. Lotteplaza.com
  8. Lotteintl.com
  9. HPC.co.kr
  10. KPchem.co.kr
  11. lotterentacar.net

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.