Singh Hao's entrepreneurial journey can also be regarded as a model of a period of "headwind overturning".
From the time he went to Japan alone and eventually became a well-to-do entrepreneur decades later, his story is also known to more and more people, especially his founding "Lotte Chewing Gum Company", which is a household name in Japan.
However, in his later years, Singh Hao pulled himself off the altar because of some controversy on his body.
Start from scratch and earn hundreds of billions of dollars
Overall, the Korean Peninsula's resources are still relatively scarce, and in the early part of the last century, North Korea was quite passive in the face of the ever-changing international situation, leaving almost no soil for entrepreneurship.
Singhho was born in such an era, and what is worse, he had 9 brothers and sisters in his family.
Perhaps in those days, many families believed that children were the hope of the family, and Singh hao realized from an early age that if he wanted to help the whole family get out of the sea of suffering, he must act as soon as possible.
Fortunately, when he grew up, Singhho's academic performance was not bad, and he also got the opportunity to study in Japan.
After being admitted to Waseda University in Japan, Singhō took a boat across the sea to Japan.
The family certainly couldn't afford the expensive tuition fees, and he had to rely on selling newspapers and milk to support himself.
In fact, what is more difficult for Singh-ho to accept than the heavy life is that he is regarded as an outlier by the locals, who know that Singh-ho is from North Korea and has almost never had respect.
For Singh Hao, he had no way back, and could only do his best to make a home here.
After graduating from college, he also successfully met his own "nobleman", who fell in love with Singh Hao's strong character and lent him a sum of money to start a business, and Singh Hao used the money to open a small oil processing plant.
As a result, the fledgling Singer-Ho faced the outbreak of World War II, the factory was destroyed by artillery fire before it was officially put into operation, and his business was a complete failure, and he was still in debt.
However, in 1945, Japan announced its surrender, and history moved in a new direction.
In Singh Hao's eyes, the inhabitants here no longer have the original pride, and the whole country is shrouded in a haze.
The Americans came, with the pride of victory, and casually threw chewing gum to the begging children, who could chew for a long time.
In the face of such a strange thing, everyone was very interested, and it did not take long for chewing gum to become popular throughout Japan.
This made many Japanese businessmen smell business opportunities, and once a good friend found Singh Hao and persuaded him to invest in chewing gum production.
Singhho also had this intention, so he hired a pharmacist and bought a machine for cutting noodles, and at this time, Lotte Company was already open.
In the matter of feelings, he did not idle, married Shigemitsu Hatsuko as a wife, and also gave himself a Japanese name "Shigemitsu Takeo", which is a typical "upside-down door".
Because his wife's uncle, Shigemitsu Aoi, re-entered politics under the protection of the United States, this is also an opportunity that Singh hao wants to seize.
Entrepreneurship has never been so simple, there were more than 400 manufacturers of chewing gum in Japan at that time, and the American "Wrigley" chewing gum has gained a huge market in Japan.
Rakuten's products want to gain a foothold, almost a pipe dream.
It was in that era that Singhho took a very bold move: advertising and marketing.
In 1951, Lotte launched an advertisement that allowed chewed gum to blow small balloons on the mouth or on bamboo pipes.
At this time, it also coincided with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida's visit to the United States and the signing of the so-called "peace treaty."
Singhho seized the opportunity to use this advertisement plus the name of "Peace Chewing Gum" to make the product popular after it was launched, and Singhho finally succeeded once.
For him personally, it's just getting started.
From the beginning of Japan's defeat in the war, it was constantly influenced by the United States, and in the early 1950s, American Western films began to flood Japan and were widely welcomed.
At this time, Singhho smelled the business opportunity again, and he immediately ordered the factory to work overtime to launch a 5 yen 1 pack of "denim chewing gum", which attracted people to buy it, and Singhhao's own position in the chewing gum industry was also established.
Next, almost every step of his entrepreneurial journey is "rubbing heat".
For example, in 1955, when Japanese television first began broadcasting, Singhho created a "Miss Lotte" craze and spent a lot of money on newspaper gimmicks, which eventually made a big noise throughout Japan.
The following year, Japan's first Antarctic expedition expedition, Lotte immediately gave away a batch of special chewing gum to the expedition.
When the expedition returned, it was confirmed that the gum would not spoil at minus 50 degrees, which became a good publicity.
In the days that followed, Lotte often held a "chewing gum contest" and invited a group of celebrities.
These practices eventually gave Lotte an unshakable position in the chewing gum industry, and Singhho himself was also known as an "advertising ghost".
If you had only pushed chewing gum in Japan, Singh Hao would not have been able to reach today's heights.
In 1967, when diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea were gradually normalized, Singh-ho saw the business opportunities in his homeland and returned to South Korea to establish the "Lotte Fruit Making Company", and this company eventually developed into the Lotte Group with huge financial support.
At that time, South Korea was still park Chung-hee's era, and in order to maintain the overall stability of society, the authorities decided to adopt the business strategy of joining forces with Korean chaebols to build an economic empire.
It was also during this period that South Korea's Samsung Group, LG Group, Hyundai Group and other groups gained the opportunity to rise rapidly.
Coincidentally, in the second half of 1979, shortly after Park Chung-hee approved the "Lotte Mall", he was assassinated.
Next, South Korea entered the Kim Doo-hwan period.
At this point, Lotte seized the opportunity to preemptively lay out and establish "Lotte World" in the center of Seoul.
Since then, Mr. Singhho's capital has piled up and eventually become a business magnate in South Korea.
In the 20 years from 1988 to 2008, Singh Hao was completing commercial accumulation on the one hand, and waiting for the opportunity on the other hand, when Lee Myung-bak appeared, Singh Hao ushered in a "blowout period".
During Lee's administration, Lotte's subsidiaries increased from 46 to 79, and its assets nearly doubled.
However, after entering China, they still followed the road of copying unchanged, and eventually did not escape the fate of moving shops.
For Singh Hao, the road of life is wonderful enough, and he has also earned hundreds of billions of dollars from a poor boy in a big family through his own efforts.
There is always a very special point in the development trajectory of The Rakuten Group, that is, no matter how Rakuten influences Korea, their parent company is in Japan, and South Korea is only a subsidiary.
Later, more than 95 percent of Lotte Group's revenue came from South Korea, but in the eyes of Koreans, they were still a company with "impure pedigree".
According to Singh-ho's original idea, the companies in Korea and Japan were distinguished, and he and his two children, Hatsuko, managed the parent company and the subsidiary respectively, and the well water between them did not violate the river water.
There was nothing wrong with such an idea at the time, but the problem was that the development of the times would always exceed everyone's expectations.
South Korea's Rakuten Group's sales in 2004 exceeded from 23 trillion won to 83 trillion won, while Japan's Rakuten Group only had 5.7 trillion yuan, and the difference between the two is too big.
Under such circumstances, the brother was naturally reluctant and ran to increase his holdings in Lotte Korea.
In this way, the younger brother was unwilling again, and went directly to the father Singh Hao to complain, and the father kicked the eldest son out of the core management in a fit of anger.
After a long time, he realized that his younger son's ambitions were not so simple, and he may want to completely reform the family business model of Lotte Group.
In 2015, the 93-year-old Singhho and his eldest son stood together again and announced their dismissal from their younger son's position.
Interestingly, the mother of two sons also appeared during this time, and sided with the younger son, began to fight against her husband and eldest son, and she even called out to the president of Uniqlo and other industry peers to come to help.
This once-glorious family business has ended up with a bad reputation, and everyone finds that they are falling apart in the process of infighting.
In his later years, Singh Hao also encountered a lot of condemnation
If you really want to get to the bottom of the matter, why the wife's first son will stand on the side of the younger son at the end to denounce Singh Hao, perhaps there are really some emotional factors in this.
Singhho's achievements in business are not comparable to ordinary people, but he has also had many problems in emotional issues.
Someone once broke the news that he had asked a 26-year-old female star to serve at the age of 89, but most people maintained a disbelief attitude, thinking that even if he had such ideas, he did not have such ability.
As a result, on March 7, 2009, Zhang Ziyan was found dead in her home, and after a preliminary investigation, he was excluded from killing, which also caused an uproar in South Korea, and countless people demanded the publication of the results of the investigation.
It wasn't until 2011 that South Korea's SBS released the actress's suicide note before her death, which was shocking, revealing that she had been forced to serve more than thirty people, including the Son of Mr. and Mrs. Singh.
The reputation of these two people also plummeted, and almost all netizens at the time were extremely angry, no matter what they explained, it did not have much effect.
When the South Korean court tried Zhang Ziyan's related case, because the party had died, many evidence was incomplete, but since then, Lotte's image began to decline seriously.
Soon after, South Korean prosecutors targeted Lotte, who discovered that Lotte was suspected of paying bribes to South Korean politicians, and illegally obtained building permits for the "Second Lotte World Building" project, as well as entering the beer import and export business.
South Korean prosecutors also believe that between 2011 and 2015, Lotte Hotels paid dividends of 121.3 billion won to shareholders, and eventually more than 120 billion yuan flowed into Rakuten, suspected of "leaking wealth of the country".
During this period, Lee In-won, who had worked at Lotte for more than forty years, committed suicide unable to resist the pressure, which put tremendous pressure on Singh-ho.
At that time, Lotte also set three major pressures in one, which can be described as stormy, and in addition to Singh Hao's very uncomfortable, his son also lived like a year.
Father and son demolition, mother-in-law confrontation, brother infighting, executive suicide, these lotte family infighting process, is definitely more exciting than most Korean dramas, those years of popular "Inheritors" content is not randomly fabricated.
2017 was a year of disaster for Singhho.
On March 20 of that year, a family that was usually upset because of the right to operate suddenly appeared in the courtroom, and they seemed to have pointed all their fingers at Singh Hao as if they had agreed in advance.
And his youngest son is the leader of it.
According to himself, all the problems facing lotte group now are related to the old man and have nothing to do with himself.
The elderly Singh Hao was almost killed by his wife and son, and the "family love" that he once believed in so much suddenly became vulnerable before the huge profits.
In the courtroom, the old man threw his crutches on the ground on the spot and shouted:
"Rakuten was founded by me, I have 100% stake, I see who can sue me?"
In addition to the excitement, the old man also floated out a few words of Japanese, making everyone in the clouds.
Faced with such a situation, the judge also seemed a little embarrassed, and had to ask Singhho to keep quiet, and in order to ensure his safety, the assistant was still measuring blood pressure.
That year, Singh-ho was 95 years old, and because lotte group faced charges such as illegal business operations, the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea issued a first-instance judgment and sentenced Singe-ho to 4 years in prison.
The prosecution against him did not end there.
In August of the following year, Singhho was again indicted for falsely publicizing the shares of overseas subsidiaries.
Based on the available evidence, the court found Thating Hao in violation of the Anti-Monopoly and Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which the court found guilty and punished Lotte with 100 million won.
However, on this day, the old man's physical condition was really not very good, so he did not appear in court.
Because the age is too old, in 2019, the South Korean prosecutor formed a medical staff to confirm Singhho's health, and finally decided to accept the application submitted by Singhho to stop the punishment.
In the last few years of life, it is extremely rare for a well-known entrepreneur to be able to bend into this way and look at the world.
On January 19, 2020, Singe-ho's health problems deteriorated sharply and he was admitted to Asan Hospital in South Korea.
On this day, almost the entire family reappeared, and the two sons accompanied the old man.
Singhho still couldn't survive the night at the age of 99.
South Korean media reported that Singh-ho's industry spans South Korea and Japan, and has achieved great development in the fields of food, tourism, circulation, petrochemicals and other fields, and is a self-made entrepreneur.
With the death of Singh hao, the "first generation of entrepreneurial entrepreneurs" also came to an end.
reference
1 The founder of Lotte died Korean media: South Korea's "first generation of entrepreneurship" came to an end China News Network
2 Rakuten Group founder Singh Ho died on People's Daily
3 Zhang Yantao. Lotte family falling apart[J]. Yingcai, 2017(03):98-99.
4 Advertising trickster Singh Hao[J]. Heilongjiang Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, 1994(01):48.