[Shin Kyuk-ho Passes Away] Shin Dong-ju and Dong-bin Together After One Year... Memorial Visits Continue

Shin Dong-bin, Chairman of Lotte Group, is seen leaving the funeral hall of Shin Kyuk-ho, Honorary Chairman of Lotte Group, set up at Seoul Asan Medical Center in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on the afternoon of the 19th. (Photo by Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Shin Kyuk-ho, honorary chairman and founder of Lotte Group, passed away from an illness at 4:29 p.m. on the 19th. At the funeral hall set up at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, family members gathered to mourn the deceased, including Shin Dong-bin, chairman of Lotte Group and second son who had grown distant due to a management dispute, and Shin Dong-joo, former vice chairman of Japan Lotte Holdings (currently chairman of SDJ Corporation) and eldest son.

On that day, Chairman Shin Dong-bin entered the funeral hall with a stern expression around 5:20 p.m. After briefly waiting with key executives including Vice Chairman Song Yong-duk, Chairman Shin entered the funeral hall. Later, he came out around 6:35 p.m. and then re-entered about 30 minutes later, showing a busy demeanor as he discussed funeral procedures.

The eldest son, former Vice Chairman Shin Dong-joo, entered the funeral hall with his wife, Jo Eun-joo, around 5:50 p.m. Shin Dong-joo spoke with medical staff and executives in front of the portrait and left the funeral hall about 10 minutes later. He re-entered the funeral hall around 8:20 p.m.

A Buddhist funeral ceremony for the deceased was held around 8 p.m. Two monks struck wooden fish and chanted sutras inside the funeral hall. Family members present included the two brothers Shin Dong-joo and Shin Dong-bin, daughter Shin Young-ja, chairwoman of the Lotte Scholarship Foundation, and wife Shigemitsu Hatsuko (重光初子).

This was the first time in one year and three months that the two brothers, Shin Dong-joo and Shin Dong-bin, gathered in one place since the second trial sentencing of Chairman Shin for the state power abuse and management corruption case in October 2018. After the Buddhist funeral ceremony ended, family members left the funeral hall one by one, starting with Chairman Shin and his wife.

Condolences from various sectors continued, including Lotte Group executives. Park Joon, vice chairman of Nongshim; Kim Nam-jung, vice chairman of Dongwon Group; and So Jin-se, CEO of Kyochon F&B, visited the funeral hall early. Representatives of affiliates such as Min Myung-gi, CEO of Lotte Confectionery, and Kang Sung-hyun, CEO of Lotte Nestl?, also visited the funeral hall before official condolences. In politics, Yoon Sang-hyun, member of the Liberty Korea Party, visited the funeral hall.

Born in 1922 and aged 99 this year, Honorary Chairman Shin had been hospitalized repeatedly due to deteriorating health in November and December last year. In October last year, he was sentenced to three years in prison by the Supreme Court on charges including management corruption but applied for suspension of sentence execution citing dementia and other health conditions. The prosecution accepted this, and he mainly lived at Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, and other places.

Honorary Chairman Shin started a small-scale food business while studying in Japan and built large corporations spanning food, distribution, tourism, and petrochemicals in both Korea and Japan. Especially after succeeding as an entrepreneur in Japan and with the normalization of Korea-Japan relations opening investment opportunities in Korea, he founded or acquired companies such as Lotte Confectionery in 1967, Hotel Lotte, Lotte Shopping, and Honam Petrochemical, making Lotte Group the fifth largest conglomerate in Korea.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.