Founder of South Korea’s Lotte Group given four-year prison sentence for embezzlement
Shin Kyuk-ho founded the group in the late 1940s and built it into a sprawling giant that today includes dozens of food, retail and hotel businesses
The wheelchair-bound 95-year-old founder of South Korea’s embattled Lotte retail conglomerate was convicted of embezzlement and breach of duty on Friday and sentenced to four years in prison.
Shin Kyuk-ho founded the group in Tokyo in 1948 and built into a sprawling giant that today has dozens of units focused on food, retail and hotels in South Korea and Japan.
It is the fifth biggest of the chaebol, the family-run conglomerates that have powered South Korea’s growth into the world’s 11th-largest economy, but are sometimes accused of murky business practices and overly-close ties with politicians.
Lotte has been a target of investigations since Shin’s two sons made headlines with a bitter public fight for control of the group, featuring personal attacks in which they accused each other of mismanagement, personality flaws, and of manipulating their frail, aged father.
The founder, both his sons, his elder daughter and his mistress were all in the dock on several charges at the Seoul Central District Court.