Lotte Co. Ltd.’s founder SHIGEMITSU Takeo was born SHIN Kyuk…
Lotte Co. Ltd.'s founder SHIGEMITSU Takeo was born SHIN Kyuk-Ho in Korea in 1922. He went to Japan in 1941 at the age of 19, leaving behind his pregnant wife in Korea, to make money. He soon married the niece of SHIGEMITSU Mamoru, a powerful politician who as the Japanese Foreign Minister signed the surrender document in front of General MacArthur aboard USS Missouri in 1945. https://youtu.be/AsZ0qwJSbuQ?t=30 SHIGEMITSU lost his right leg in a bombing by YUN Bong-Gil, a Korean rรฉsistance fighter.
SHIN took his wife's uncle's last name and became SHIGEMITSU Takeo.
He founded Lotte in Japan in 1948 and turned it into one of the largest corporations in Japan at the time. He then founded the Korean branch in 1967. The Korean branch has since grown to surpass the Japanese branch 5 times over(or 20 times, according to some sources) and it is now the 5th largest corporation in Korea.
He used to travel back and forth between Japan and Korea, spending odd months in Korea and even months in Japan to run both branches until 2011. He resides in Korea now.
His two sons, Hiroyuki and Akio have equal number of shares in Lotte, with Hiroyuki, the elder son, being in charge of Lotte Japan and Akio in charge of Lotte Korea, until 2015 when Hiroyuki tried to take over both branches but failed and was pushed out along with his father, by Akio. SHIGEMITSU Akio now heads both Lotte Japan and Lotte Korea.
Most of his family members are Japanese but Hiroyuki and Akio, who were both born in Japan to a Japanese mother, have naturalised in Korea in recent years, possibly to maintain the family's control over the significantly larger Korean branch. Hiroyuki speaks very little Korean while Akio has a conversational knowledge of Korean.
It is not a well known fact in Japan that the founder and CEOs of Lotte are of Korean descent.
SHIGEMITSU Takeo's younger brother SHIN Chun-Ho is the founder of Nongshim, which makes Shin ramyeon.