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text| Small fishing
Edit| Small fishing
As one of the five largest chaebols in South Korea, Lotte Group was once ranked among the top 30 of the world's top 500 companies, and its business fields covered supermarkets, real estate, finance, logistics and other industries, which are closely related to people's lives.
In 1994, Lotte Group set its sights on China, and since then major subsidiaries such as Lotte Mart, Lotte World, and Lotte Department Store have established enterprises in China.
At that time, there was no influx of retail giants in China, and domestic supermarket brands were still in the initial stage of development.
In this context, Lotte Group seized the opportunity and expanded rapidly in China through a series of operations such as mergers and acquisitions and cooperation, and by 2010, Lotte Group had 100 stores in China, radiating to North, South and Southwest China.
With this momentum, Lotte will continue to achieve its ambitious goal of 300 stores.
However, to everyone's surprise, an incident happened that completely delisted this company in China.
What are the hidden secrets in this? How did Rakuten Group end?
Let's go into today's story and explore this "history of the fall of the consortium".
A godsend
Rely on your own efforts, join the ranks of chaebols, start from scratch, and create hundreds of billions of Lotte.
This sentence refers to the founder of the Lotte Group, Sin Gehao.
In 1921, Sing Yongho was born in Ulsan, Nam, Gyeongyeong, South Korea.
It was the end of World War I, the situation was turbulent, and as the eldest son in the family, Singh Ho had to give up his studies and shoulder the burden of supporting his family early.
Without culture and technology, Xin Gehao can only blend at the bottom of society, relying on labor in exchange for a meager income.
Gradually, Singhao got tired of this kind of life, and he wanted to get rid of the difficult status quo and change his fate by reading.
In 1942, Singh went to Waseda University in Japan to study chemistry.
In 1943, Sin Ge-ho met the Korean woman Lu Soonhua, and on the basis of mutual affection, the two entered the marriage hall and gave birth to their daughter Shin Young-ja soon after.
Lu Shunhua is virtuous and filial, gets up early every day, is greedy, and works tirelessly, with her support, Sing Gehao devotes himself to learning.
After graduation, Xin Gehao still maintained this hard work.
The pawnshop owner Hana Mitsu saw that he was working so hard, so he lent him 50,000 yen and suggested that he invest in setting up a factory.
Unfortunately, as soon as the factory was built, it was smashed by a heavy object dropped by an aircraft.
Undeterred, Singh Hao took the rest of the money to start a soap business with a lower threshold.
This time, the business went very smoothly, and in just one year, he paid off all the debts to the Huaguang clan.
In 1945, when World War II ended, a large number of American soldiers were stationed in Japan, and their appearance of chewing gum attracted a lot of attention.
Singh Ho realized that an opportunity had come.
Therefore, he immediately arranged for the transformation of employees and turned the soap factory into a chewing gum factory.
In line with the needs of the times, business will naturally not be bad.
In just two months, the revenue of the gum factory exceeded the income of the soap factory in a year.
At this moment, Singh can be a handshaker, food and clothing, but his ambitions do not stop there.
In his view, only promotion to the highest level and admiration by thousands of people is the end.
For this reason, Singh Ho made friends and went to high-level dance parties.
One day, he met the biggest nobleman in his life, Shigemitsu Hatsuko.
Hatsuko Shigemitsu is the niece of Japanese Vice Minister and Foreign Minister Aoi Shigemitsu, and is an undisputed top figure.
After learning about the family background of Chongmitsu Hatsuko, Sin Gehao decisively sent the divorce letter back to his hometown and boldly showed his love to Chongguang.
With his handsome face, he quickly gained the favor of Shigemitsu Hatsuko. After dating for a period of time, the two quickly flashed marriage and gave birth to two sons, named Xin Dongzhu and Xin Dongbin.
In the five years after marriage, with the support of the Chongguang family, orders for Singhho's factory increased exponentially.
The company's market value has increased nearly 100 times, and the industry has expanded from a single chewing gum to supermarkets, hotels, real estate, and finance.
There are many giants
In 1965, with the normalization of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan, Sin Geho set his sights on South Korea and established Lotte Fruit to achieve the paving effect.
In 1967, South Korea's political situation stabilized, and in order to vigorously develop the country's economy, South Korea's then President Park Chung-hee proposed a preferential opening up strategy.
This move was in Singh Ho's heart, and just after getting the news, he returned to South Korea with Shin Dong Bin.
At first, the development of the Lotte Group was not good, and it often could not make ends meet, but Singh had a strong hand and eye, and he changed the decline with only one move, which was to use money to dredge up the political world.
In 1970, Singh Ho went directly to the Blue House presidential office, and the two talked happily, talked and laughed, and reached a number of cooperations.
With the support of the President, the development of the Lotte Group is naturally unimpeded.
Fifteen years later, the once unknown supermarket company once developed into one of the five major Korean conglomerates on a par with Samsung, SK, Hyundai and LG.
In the Korean business community, legends about Sin Ngho are circulating everywhere, and everyone sees him as a role model and a target for catching up.
In fact, Singh Ho is not as good as they thought.
During his business in South Korea, Sin Geho, who was free from the control of Chongguang Hatsuko, completely let go of himself and messed with flowers everywhere.
In the eighties of last century, Lotte Group held the "Miss Lotte" beauty contest, and Sin Gehao, who served as a judge, immediately fell in love with the young and beautiful Xu Meijing.
Through some black box operations, Xu Meijing became the champion.
Since then, Sin Gehao has often used his position to mingle with Xu Meijing.
In order to win Xu Meijing's smile, Xin Gehao sent cars, houses, and watches.
Of course, Xu Meijing is also not simple, she knows the characteristics of chaebol flowers, in order to leave a way back for herself, she gave birth to a daughter to Sin Gehao in just two years.
This is not over, in 2011, the suicide of the famous artist Zhang Ziyan was exposed, according to the police disclosure, Zhang Ziyan left a letter before her death, the content of which read: "I was forced to accompany alcohol in an agency and provide improper services, and served as many as 100 times in 3 years." ”
In the list of reports, Sin Gehao and Xin Dongbin appeared impressively.
This incident brought huge reputational losses to Lotte Group, but fortunately, Xin Gehao was outstanding, and in just a few dozen days, he suppressed negative public opinion.
As the so-called "rich people are right and wrong", in addition to unruly life, the power struggle at the top of Lotte is equally fierce.
Sin is an older generation of Koreans, and in their conception, the eldest son succeeds to the throne as a matter of course.
Therefore, at the beginning of the development, he arranged everything, that is, the eldest son Shin Dong-ho managed Rakuten Japan, and the second son Shin Dongbin managed Lotte Korea.
To his surprise, however, Mr. Shin was business-minded, and under his operation, the market value of a subsidiary was 14 times that of the main company.
Seeing that Xin Dongbin's power was growing, Sin Gehao had to suppress and remove him from all his positions.
Xin Dongbin has been in business for many years, although he is not as good as his father, but he is also a capable person in the industry.
After being suppressed, he immediately thought of a countermeasure and directly asked Chongguang Hatsuko to come forward.
Shigemitsu Hatsuko is the benefactor of the Lotte Group, and it is no exaggeration to say that without her, there would be no Sin Gehao today.
For Sin Gehao's outrageous moves, Shigemitsu Hatsuko was not accustomed to it, she directly used Japanese political resources to dredge up relations, removed Sin Gehao from his post, and let the young and capable Shin Dongbin take charge of the Lotte Empire.
The empire is in ruins
The palace fight is over, and everything is back on track.
I thought that under the leadership of Xin Dongbin, Lotte Group could create glory again, but to everyone's surprise, the THAAD incident broke out, and Lotte Group completely went downhill.
In 2016, in order to curry favor with the United States, South Korean President Park Geun-hye decided to build the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea.
Faced with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Lotte Group opened up its firepower and won the hosting rights.
At the end of September, South Korea's Ministry of National Defense announced that Lotte Sin Chew Golf Course would be suspended and would become a deployment site for the THAAD anti-missile system.
Geographically, South Korea and China are close, and the establishment of THAAD will greatly threaten the defense and security of the mainland.
As soon as this news broke, it immediately aroused public indignation throughout the country.
During that time, as long as all the products of the Lotte Group were boycotted, some stores were even attacked by the Chinese people, and the remaining surviving stores were also dismal and could not maintain normal operations.
According to South Korean statistics, during the "anti-Korean wave" period, Lotte Supermarket lost up to 8 trillion won, or about 15 billion yuan, accounting for 0.5% of South Korea's GDP.
In addition to this Lotte Supermarket, Lotte Tourism and some affiliated industries have also been greatly affected.
What is even sadder is that although Rakuten's stores are closed, rent, utilities, and property fees are indispensable, and according to Chinese law, Lotte must also pay employees 80% of their usual salaries.
Originally, Lotte Group could rank about 50 among the world's top 500 companies, but after experiencing this incident, Rakuten's status plummeted, almost falling out of the top 300.
In desperation, Lotte head Xin Dongbin had to go out in person, and when interviewed by the media, he said bluntly: "I love China and will continue to lead Lotte to develop in the Chinese market, in order to express my apologies, I am willing to invest 2 billion yuan to vigorously carry out preferential activities and give back to the Chinese market." ”
In the face of great right and wrong, the Chinese people will never choose the wrong one.
Over time, Lotte Group's stores continued to lose money.
In desperation, Lotte had to turn to the European market.
In 2018, LOTTE built three top hotels in Europe, which occupied excellent geographical locations, but there were not enough consumers, and in the long run, LOTTE Hotels could not make a profit and was forced to close.
At the same time, seeing Lotte hit hard, South Korea's major conglomerates have fallen into the rocks and cannibalized its domestic market.
Under such a premise, Rakuten's market value has shrunk rapidly, far less than it was back then.
After Park Geun-hye stepped down, South Korean prosecutors discovered that Lotte Group and Park Geun-hye had a relationship of interest transmission, and as the investigation deepened, everything surfaced.
In October 2019, Sin was sentenced to 3 years in prison on suspicion of illegal operations, while Xin Dongbin was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison for bribery.