'Selection and Focus'... Lotte Sells Convenience Store ATM Business

Securing 60 Billion KRW in Liquidity
Funds to Be Used for Financial Structure Improvement

Korea Seven, the operator of convenience store Seven-Eleven, is selling its convenience store ATM business and plans to use liquidity worth 60 billion KRW to improve its financial structure.

On the 26th, Korea Seven announced that it had signed a contract to sell its ATM business division (formerly Lotte PS Net) to Korea Electronic Finance, a company specializing in financial automation devices. However, even after the sale, Korea Seven plans to establish a mid- to long-term partnership with Korea Electronic Finance to stably operate maintenance of existing store ATMs and CD machines as well as new convenience store installations.

Previously, in 2019, Korea Seven merged Lotte PS Net to integrate its convenience store operation business with the ATM operation business to create synergy. However, since then, it has regarded the ATM business as a non-core business and has been pursuing its sale since early last year.

Korea Seven plans to use the liquidity of over 60 billion KRW secured through this contract to improve its financial structure. By selling non-core businesses, it aims to focus on strengthening its core business competitiveness while entrusting the financial sector to specialized companies to enhance customer service.

Recently, Lotte Group has been accelerating business structure improvement by strengthening its 'selection and concentration' strategy to enhance its fundamental competitiveness. To this end, it has been selling non-core businesses and assets to speed up business structure improvement. In December last year, it sold Lotte Rental, and this month, it sold Lotte Wellfood’s Jeungpyeong factory and Lotte Chemical’s Pakistan subsidiary, followed by the sale of Korea Seven’s ATM business.

Lotte Shopping has undertaken asset revaluation for the first time in 15 years to improve its financial structure. As a result of the asset revaluation, the book value of land increased by 9.5 trillion KRW to 17.7 trillion KRW compared to the previous period, and the debt ratio decreased from 190.4% to 128.6%. Earlier, Lotte Shopping also sold inefficient assets such as Lotte Mart Suwon Yeongtong branch and Lotte Super Yeoui branch last year.

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