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Lotte Corporation
Lotte is a South Korean conglomerate that makes and sells everything from candy and soft drinks to department store retail and chemicals.
Lotte is one of South Korea's biggest conglomerates, a sprawling group whose products show up in a Korean household almost every day. Its most recognizable business is food: candy, biscuits, ice cream, and soft drinks sold under brands like Choco Pie and Milkis. But food is only one piece of the puzzle. Lotte also runs department stores and hypermarkets, builds and sells chemicals, and manages hotels and duty-free shops. The company sits at the center of this web, owning stakes in the listed affiliates that actually run each business.
The way it makes money is a bit unusual. Lotte Corporation itself is largely a holding company — it owns pieces of the operating companies rather than running every store and factory directly. So a big chunk of its income comes from dividends and profits passed up from affiliates like Lotte Shopping, Lotte Chemical, and Lotte Wellfood. The food and retail arms earn money the ordinary way: customers buy snacks, groceries, and department-store goods, and the group keeps the margin. Duty-free retail is another major earner, fueled largely by foreign tourists shopping in Korea. What makes Lotte strong is its grip on everyday consumption in Korea — the kind of brand loyalty built over decades. What makes it vulnerable is exactly that: it is deeply tied to the Korean consumer and to Korean retail, both of which face slow growth, fierce competition, and pressure from online shopping. The chemicals business, meanwhile, is cyclical and exposed to global prices, which can swing profits sharply.
Lotte has also been through real drama. The group was founded in Japan by a Korean businessman, Shin Kyuk-ho, and grew into a cross-border empire before a bitter family feud over control erupted in the 2010s. That fight, plus a major political scandal in Korea that entangled the group's duty-free business, dented its reputation and forced restructuring. Today the company's job is to squeeze more value from a mature collection of businesses, often by selling or merging weaker pieces.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026