Lotte (conglomerate)

Lotte
롯데
ロッテ

Industry	food processing retail financial services electronics petro-chemicals and more
Founder	Takeo Shigemitsu (重光 武雄/しげみつ たけお?, Shigemitsu Takeo)
Headquarters	Jung District, Seoul, South Korea
Area served	Asia, North America, Europe
Key people	Takeo Shigemitsu, Akio Shigemitsu (重光 昭夫/しげみつ あきお?, Shigemitsu Akio)
Revenue	67,418,470 million KRW (2011)
Operating income	5,626,487 million KRW (2011)
Net income	3,289,570 million KRW (2011)
Number of employees	South Korea: 180000 Japan: 5000
Website	www.lotte.co.kr

Lotte Co., Ltd. (Hangul: 롯데, Katakana: ロッテ ) is a multinational conglomerate with headquarters in South Korea and Japan. Lotte was first established in June 1948 in Tokyo, by Takeo Shigemitsu (重光 武雄/しげみつ たけお^?, Shigemitsu Takeo) (also known as Shin Kyuk-ho). With the money he earned in Japan, Shigemitsu 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 Shigemitsu's family in Japan and South Korea, with additional businesses in China, 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.