Lotte (conglomerate)

Lotte Co., Ltd. (ロッテ, Hangul: 롯데) is a multinational conglomerate with headquarters in South Korea and Japan. Lotte was first established in June 1948 in Tokyo, by Shin Kyuk-ho(신격호) (also known as Takeo Shigemitsu). With the money he earned in Japan, Shin expanded to his home country, South Korea with the establishment of Lotte Confectionery in Seoul on April 3, 1967. Lotte eventually grew to become South Korea's eighth largest business conglomerate.

Lotte Group consists of over 60 business units employing 60,000 people engaged in such diverse industries as candy manufacturing, beverages, hotels, fast food, retail, financial services, heavy chemicals, electronics, IT, construction, publishing, and entertainment. Lotte's major operations are overseen by Shin's family in Japan and South Korea, with additional businesses inChina, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, USA, UK, Russia, Philippines, Pakistan and Poland (Lotte bought Poland's largest candy company Wedel from Kraft Foods in June 2010). Today, Lotte is the largest confectionery manufacturer in South Korea, and is the third largest in Japan behind Meiji Seika and Ezaki Glico in terms of sales revenue when only the sales of Lotte's confectioneries are counted.