Lotte Coup
In the shareholder meeting of Lotte Holdings Japan, which was the watershed of Lotte Group’s governance dispute, Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin has won a complete victory. Accordingly, Shin Dong-bin has completed his succession as head of the family business. There is now one Lotte under one leader.
The shareholder meeting, which took place at Teikoku Hotel in Tokyo at 9:30 am on Aug. 17, ended in only 15 minutes. During the meeting, participants were set to discuss agenda items such as hiring an external board of directors and improving the group's corporate governance structure. Both agenda items were passed in the original form proposed by Chairman Shin Dong-bin. Teikyo University Prof. Tomoko Sasaki, a former member of the House of Councilors and a former public prosecutor who graduated from the law school of Kobe University, was appointed as Lotte Holdings’ first outside director.
A senior official from Lotte Group said, “The two agenda items were passed by a majority vote. It shows the support for Chairman Shin Dong-bin’s management policy that management and family shouldn’t be mixed up.”
It was the first shareholder meeting after Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin became CEO of Lotte Holdings Japan through an emergency board meeting on July 28. Also, it is meaningful that shareholders of Lotte Holdings Japan, who are at the center of the governance structure of Lotte Korea and Japan, have sided with Chairman Shin. Accordingly, the Lotte Group has ended the era of Shin Kyuk-ho, Lotte Group’s founder and former general chairman, and opened the era of Shin Dong-bin.
The agenda item of the corporate management system is part of a bigger reform plan proposed by Dong-bin to improve the governance structure and management transparency of the Lotte Group in his national apology on Aug. 11. Since the passage of the item can be interpreted as the shareholders’ support for Chairman Shin, his reform drive is expected to gain momentum in the future.
A family feud over the control of Korean-Japanese conglomerate Lotte Group moved closer toward a conclusion as the shareholders of its holding company voted to approve management plans led by the younger son of the founder in the meeting.