Shinsegae

Shinsegae Inc. (Korean: 신세계; Hanja: 新世界; lit. new world, KRX: 004170) is a South Korean department store franchise, along with several other businesses, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. The firm is an affiliate of Shinsegae Group, South Korea's leading retail chaebol, and one of the big three department store firms in Korea, along with Lotte and Hyundai Department Store. Its flagship store in Centum City, Busan, was the world's largest department store at 3,163,000 square feet (293,900 m), surpassing Macy's flagship Herald Square in New York City in 2009.
Shinsegae was the first credit card company in South Korea. They issued their own charge card from 1967 to 2000. In 2000, Shinsegae sold their credit card division to KorAm Bank, which was later acquired by Citibank Korea.
Shinsegae was originally part of the Samsung Group, from which it separated in the 1990s along with CJ Group (Food/Chemicals/Entertainment), Saehan Group (Electronic Media/Apparel/Textiles), and the Hansol Group (Paper/Telecom). Chairwoman Lee Myung-hee is the fifth daughter of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul and the aunt of Lee Jae-yong, the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics.
The group owns the brands Shinsegae and E-Mart, and is in direct competition with Lotte Shopping and Hyundai Department Store Group.
The main branch of Shinsegae is the oldest department store in Korea. It was opened in 1930 as the Gyeongseong branch of Mitsukoshi, a Japanese department store franchise; Korea was occupied by the Japanese Empire at the time. The store was acquired in 1945 by the late founder of Samsung group, Lee Byung-chull, and renamed Donghwa Department Store. After the Korean War (1950–1953) began, it was used for several years as a post exchange by the American army. In 1963, the store was given the name Shinsegae. The old building is currently used as a luxury shopping venue.
In 2021, Shinsegae bought the then-named SK Wyverns of the KBO League from SK and renamed then the SSG Landers. They bought them for 135.2 billion won, (100 billion for the team itself, and 35.2 billion for the team's facilities and properties) equivalent to $112.8 million.
Shinsegae Group will split its department store and supermarket divisions into two separate entities, the retail giant said 30 Oct 2024.
The Daejeon store opened in 2021 is rather unique as it is a combination of department store, to a limited extent a shopping center, together with an art and science-oriented cultural facilities, a hotel and office space.
The 284,224 m (3,059,360 sq ft), complex, costing 600 billion won (500,000,000 USD), consists of Podium department store area, and EXPO Tower. 88,572 m (953,380 sq ft) are dedicated to department store sales area.
Podium includes:
The EXPO Tower building, 43 stories and 193 meters high, includes:
The complex also includes (it is unclear in which section):
Shinsegae also has a small branch in Incheon International Airport, and a supermarket in Dogok-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
Shinsegae launched the Shinsegae Style Market, a smaller shopping mall mainly aimed at young customers, in 2010. Despite its name, the mall is managed by Shinsegae's subsidiary E-Mart.
E-Mart (Korean: 이마트) is a subsidiary of Shinsegae and a large discount store chain founded in South Korea, having stores in China, Korea and Mongolia. Domestically, E-Mart is the biggest discount store chain followed by Home Plus, and Lotte Mart.
In late May 2006, Shinsegae revealed plans to buy all 16 of the Wal-Mart stores in Korea. All of the country's Wal-Mart outlets were re-branded as E-Mart in October 2006. Wal-Mart exited the Korean market soon after.
Shinsegae spun off its E-Mart department into a separate corporation (KRX: 139480) in 2012. The shopping mall was acquired by E-Mart in January 2014.
SSG (usually read as "쓱") is an online shopping mall operated by Shinsegae in 2014. Through this shopping mall, products from Shinsegae affiliates (Shinsegae Department Store, E-Mart, Casamia, CHICOR, etc.) can be shopped online.
Shinsegae banned commercial images of actress Go Hyun-jung (고현정) from their department stores following her divorce from vice chairman and former CEO Chung Yong-jin.