[Featured Stock] Lotte Shopping Surges Over 5% on Expectations of Net Profit Turning Positive

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Lotte Shopping is showing strong performance in the early trading session amid expectations of a turnaround to net profit.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 8th, as of 10:19 AM, Lotte Shopping is trading at 110,500 KRW, up 5.24% compared to the previous trading day.

On the same day, NH Investment & Securities upgraded its investment opinion on Lotte Shopping to 'Buy' and raised the target price by 45% from the previous level to 145,000 KRW.

NH Investment & Securities forecasted that Lotte Shopping's operating profit for the second quarter of this year will increase by 568% year-on-year to 50.6 billion KRW. Sales are expected to rise by 1% during the same period to 3.9266 trillion KRW.

Although the subsidiary Lotte Himart continues to experience poor performance due to a slowdown in home appliance sales, department stores and discount stores are expected to record growth rates of 13% and 3%, respectively.

Joo Young-hoon, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities, said, "Lotte Shopping recorded consecutive net losses for five years since 2016, making it difficult to properly evaluate corporate value. This year, the normalization of operations in major business divisions is confirmed, and the possibility of impairment of right-of-use assets is also considered low. Therefore, the visibility of a turnaround to net profit for the first time in six years is expected to be high."

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