It is usual for Korean politicians and business tycoons to offer apologies when they are embroiled in big scandals. In most cases, they hope their public apologies will end the furor and return things to normal.

But for Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin, such hopes are slim. To be fair, the public apology he made Tuesday over the recent leadership feud in his family and the consequent turmoil in the retail giant should be the start of many things he, his family and the conglomerate will do in the coming months and years.

Coming on top of the tasks that lie ahead for the Shin family and Lotte is addressing the conglomerate’s murky governance and ownership structure, which was laid bare in the wake of the family feud.

The problem of chaebol being controlled by members of founding families who hold small stakes is neither new nor limited to Lotte. But the case at Lotte -- as was revealed during the ugly fight between chairman Shin and his elder brother -- is one of the worst.

Shin Kyuk-ho, the founder of the group and ailing father of the brothers, holds a 0.05 percent stake in Lotte’s units in Korea, and the total stake amounts to 2.41 percent even if the shares of the entire Shin family members are added together.

Given this, it would have been inevitable for chairman Shin to list the shares of Hotel Lotte, which effectively serves as the holding company of the group’s Korean units, on the stock market.

He also promised to eliminate 80 percent of the cobweb of 416 cross-shareholding arrangements among the Lotte affiliates, which enable the Shin family to control the nation’s fifth-largest conglomerate despite having such small stakes.

In order to push for costly reforms, Shin said he would name a special task force on the group’s governance and ownership structure.

The measures he announced will not be sufficient to fully restore public confidence in the group, which exposed so many problems in the course of the brothers’ feud to take over control of the conglomerate from their 93-year-old father.

But Shin should at least follow up on the promises he made in a fast and thorough manner. If not, the group will face an even greater crisis, because its governance and ownership structure have already become the target of scrutiny by the government, political community and nongovernment organizations.

In addition, the chairman -- and hopefully his brother, father and other members of the family -- should make sure their conflict over management control of the group will not escalate further.

It would be more than good if the two brothers came to terms with each other before Lotte Japan Holdings’ crucial shareholders meeting on Monday.

Unfortunately, that is unlikely, judging from what chairman Shin said at Tuesday’s news conference -- that he is willing to talk with his father and brother on personal matters, but issues related to management rights are a separate matter.

Yet, we hope the Shin family avoids a catastrophe, not for their sake but for the sake of the group’s 180,000 employees, contractors, and partners, and most of all, the national economy.