Japanese shareholders of a holding firm for South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group Wednesday voted in favor of keeping Lotte Group chief in his current position as he promised reform measures to restore the South Korean retail giant's image dented by a corruption investigation.
Shin Dong-bin attended a meeting of Lotte Holdings shareholders at its Tokyo headquarters, one day after making a public apology and announcing a series of measures to improve the group's opaque governance structure at a press conference in Seoul.
Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin makes a public apology over a corruption investigation during a press conference at Lotte Hotel in Seoul on Oct. 25, 2016. (Yonhap)
During the three-hour meeting, Japanese shareholders were briefed on the latest developments in the investigation and agreed to keep the incumbent chief in the current job, according to Lotte officials.
Lotte Holdings serves as a de facto holding firm for major Lotte subsidiaries in Japan and South Korea. It also holds a 19 percent stake in Hotel Lotte, a hidden jewel that seeks to list its shares on the Seoul bourse.
Last week, South Korean prosecutors indicted the 61-year-old tycoon without physical detention on charges of orchestrating a series of shady deals at the group's affiliates, as well as giving large stipends to the owner's family for just being listed as board members of the conglomerate's Korean and Japanese branches.
Prosecutors suspect the amount of money transacted illegally under Shin's direction to hover around some 170 billion won ($154 million).
Five members of Lotte's founding family and 19 other senior officials were also charged with corruption and a wide range of other business irregularities.
During Tuesday's conference, Shin said his company will gear up preparations for the listing of Hotel Lotte to diversify its shareholders. The hotel and duty-free operator had initially planned to go public in June, but it was forced to nix the plan amid the widening investigation.
The IPO was the key reform pledge the chairman had made to improve the murky governance structure of the business empire following an acrimonious succession battle with his elder brother Dong-joo. (Yonhap)
