Published : Jan. 6, 2015 - 21:03
Shin Dong-joo, the eldest son of Lotte Group founder and general chairman Shin Kyuk-ho, was dismissed from his executive positions at three Lotte affiliates in Japan, Lotte Holdings in Japan announced on Monday.
According to the company, during a meeting in December the board of directors decided that Shin Dong-joo would no longer serve as vice president of Lotte, as vice chairman and CEO of Lotte International, and as a Lotte Ice Cream executive. But he will remain vice chairman of Lotte Holdings, the company said.
The Japanese and Korean branches of the company have both refused to provide details about the dismissal.
Shin Dong-joo
It had been widely expected that Shin Dong-joo would take over Lotte in Japan while his younger brother and Lotte chairman Shin Dong-bin would take over the Korean unit after their 92-year-old father Shin Kyuk-ho officially retired.
But because Lotte Holdings holds the lion’s share of Lotte Hotel, which serves as the de facto holding company of Lotte Group here, Shin Dong-joo was perceived as the successor of the Lotte empire, which stretches across Asia and even to the U.S.
Last year, he gained public attention when he started buying up stocks of Lotte Confectionary, one of the main axes of the cyclical shareholding structure of Korean Lotte.
“Rumors are rampant that Dong-joo somehow lost his father’s favor and fell behind his younger brother in the succession competition,” a market watcher said on condition of anonymity.
Lotte Group in Japan was founded in 1948 by Shin Kyuk-ho as a confectionary-maker but soon expanded to service and other sectors. The company is famous for owning the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team there.
The company landed in Korea in 1967 and grew into an even bigger business conglomerate after seeing success in the retail, hotel, petrochemical industries here, among other. Lotte’s market value was estimated at around 23.25 trillion won ($21 billion) as of November 2014, according to Daishin Securities.
By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)