Lotte Chilsung Beverage Returnee Shin Dong-bin Completes the 'New Lotte' Puzzle

Lotte Chilsung Beverage Signals Management Comeback
Actively Investing in Future Growth Businesses Like Health & Wellness and Mobility

Shin Dong-bin, Chairman of Lotte.

"We must change to secure future growth engines in new areas. The will to break the existing framework and move forward is important." (2023 New Year's Address)

"This year is a crucial time to prove the efforts we have prepared over the past few years for a leap forward." (2023 First Half VCM)

Shin Dong-bin, Chairman of Lotte, is taking the lead in fostering the group's future businesses. Marking his return to management at Lotte Chilsung Beverage, he aims to minimize decision-making processes for businesses that will play a key role in Lotte's future food sources, while actively investing through mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

According to the distribution industry on the 6th, Lotte Chilsung Beverage will hold its regular shareholders' meeting on the 22nd of this month at Lotte Hotel World in Songpa-gu, Seoul, to discuss the agenda of appointing Chairman Shin as an inside director. This marks his return to management three years after stepping down from the inside director position at Lotte Chilsung Beverage at the end of 2019. If approved, Chairman Shin will participate as a registered director in board resolutions at five affiliates: Lotte Holdings, Lotte Confectionery, Lotte Chemical, Canon Korea, and Lotte Chilsung Beverage.

Chairman Shin has consistently emphasized the importance of nurturing future businesses over the past few years, stressing the need to transform into a "new Lotte." He set keywords to respond to future society, advocating for fostering new businesses in new areas and improving the structure of existing businesses accordingly.

The keywords Lotte has focused on are Health & Wellness, Mobility, Sustainability, and New Life Platforms. As part of this, Lotte launched Lotte Healthcare and Lotte Biologics last year and officially formalized these keywords into four new business themes at CES 2023, the world's largest electronics and IT exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA, last January. This year, Lotte plans to accelerate these four themed new businesses, expand market dominance through mergers and acquisitions, and restructure its business portfolio.

Lotte Chilsung Beverage will take on the role of strengthening the first theme, the Health & Wellness business. Lotte Healthcare's personalized health management platform 'Kazle,' unveiled at CES 2023, will develop products such as health functional foods and health-oriented foods that can lead users from personalized diagnosis and recommendations to purchase. Accordingly, Lotte Chilsung Beverage also identified health functional foods as a future growth engine alongside bottled water, zero sugar, distilleries, and wineries. The acquisition of a 53% stake in the health functional food specialized startup Bigsome is also an investment to strengthen this competitiveness. The industry expects that with Chairman Shin's return as an inside director, Lotte Chilsung Beverage will accelerate global investments, mergers and acquisitions, and business expansion aimed at these goals.

The industry also anticipates that since Chairman Shin declared this year as the year to prove past efforts at the first half VCM (formerly the Presidents' Meeting), major group affiliates will focus on visualizing changes toward a new Lotte.

Last July, following the merger with Lotte Food, Lotte Confectionery also changed its name to 'Lotte Wellfood,' signaling a full-scale leap into a comprehensive food company. Lotte Biologics is working to secure business capabilities to achieve its goal of becoming a global top 10 bio contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) by 2030. Lotte Information & Communication participated in CES 2023, showcasing an ultra-realistic metaverse capable of simultaneous multi-access by over 30 people, as well as 'Virtual Stores' in collaboration with Lotte Duty Free, Lotte Himart, and Seven Eleven, where various products can be experienced. Through 'EVsis,' an electric vehicle charging platform by Jungang Control, a subsidiary of Lotte Information & Communication, the installation of domestic EV charging stations is also expanding.

Efforts are also being made to strengthen key business capabilities. Lotte Department Store will open the mega complex theme shopping mall 'Lotte Mall Westlake' in Hanoi, Vietnam, this August, expanding its business area in Southeast Asia. The chemical division of Lotte Group, which includes Lotte Chemical, is building a value chain for core secondary battery materials such as cathode foil, copper foil, electrolyte organic solvents, and separators.

Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin (right) is meeting with Phan Van Mai, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Thu Thiem Eco Smart City held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, last September, requesting support for the bid to host the "2030 Busan Expo."
[Photo by Lotte Holdings].

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