Lotte

**Lotte Co., Ltd.** (ロッテ *Rotte*, Hangul: 롯데) is a multinational food, chemicals and shopping corporation with headquarters in South Korea and Japan. Lotte was first established in June 1948 in Tokyo, by Takeo Shigemitsu (also known as Shin Kyuk-ho). 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). As of 2016, 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.

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

* Food Products: Lotte Confectionery, Lotte Chilsung, Lotteria, E Wedel, Lotte Ham/Lotte Milk, Lotte Samkang, Angel-in-us, T.G.I. Friday’s, Swiss Boulagerie, Lotte Cool, Lotte Fresh Delica, Lotte Pharm., Lotte Shopping Food Division
* Shopping: Lotte Duty Free, Lotte Shopping, Lotte Mart, Lotte Department Store, Lotte-Assi Plaza
* Entertainment: Lotte Cinema, Lotte Entertainment (investment and distribution of domestic and international films)
* Finance: Lotte Insurance, Lotte Card, Lotte Capital
* Housing: Lotte Castle High Rise Apartment Complex
* Amusement parks: Lotte Cinema, Lotte World in Seoul, one of the world's largest indoor theme parks.
* Hotels: Lotte Super Tower 123, skyscraper in Seoul, South Korea, 2014 and Busan Lotte Tower skyscraper in Busan, South Korea, 2013, Lotte City Hotel in Daejeon, Lotte New York Palace in New York City
* Trade: Lotte international
* IT / Electronics: Korea Fuji Film, Lotte Canon, Lotte IT, Lotte.com, Mobidomi
* Heavy chemicals / construction / machinery: Honam Petrochemical, KP Chemical, Lotte Engineering & Construction, Lotte Engineering & Machinery, Lotte Aluminum
* Car rental: Lotte rent-a-car

### Sports

Lotte also owns professional baseball teams:

* Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan (1971–present)
* Lotte Giants in Busan, South Korea (1982–present).

### Lotte R&D Center

* Korea R&D Center : 23,4-ga, Yangpyeong-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
* Japan R&D Center : Saitama, Saitama, Japan

## External links

* Lotte Group Japan (English)
* Lotte Group Korea
* Wikipedia article