April 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Lotte Holdings, the Tokyo-based company that holds a major stake in Korean retail giant Lotte, began a crucial shareholders meeting on June 29 to vote on the dismissal of the imprisoned group Chairman Shin Dong-bin from the board.

The motion was proposed by Shin Dong-joo, former vice chairman of Lotte Holdings and estranged elder brother of Dong-bin, who had waged an unsuccessful battle against his sibling to gain control of Korea‘s fifth-largest conglomerate.

The elder Shin was dismissed from his position in Lotte Holdings in 2015 due to a compliance violation and poor management acumen, according to Lotte Group.

The latest motion was proposed after Shin Dong-bin was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in February for giving bribes to a friend of ousted ex-President Park Geun-hye in return for business favors. He resigned as co-CEO of Lotte Holdings following the ruling but retained his status as a director of the board.

The chairman has sought bail so he can speak directly at the shareholders meeting but was thwarted as the court did not deliver its decision on the request. It marked the first time since the establishment of Lotte Holdings in 2007 that the younger Shin skipped the regular gathering.

Chairman Shin has won all the four previous votes that took place since the managerial feud between the two brothers surfaced in 2015.

A delegation of senior Lotte Group executives headed to Japan on June 28 to meet with the management of the conglomerate’s Japanese counterpart, carrying a letter from the chairman.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)