[Courtesy of Lotte Mart]
SEOUL -- The hypermarket chain of South Korea's Lotte Group has decided to sell one of its regional clusters in China to Liqun Group, a Qingdao-based retailer as it stepped up the withdrawal of its troubled business hit by a prolonged consumer boycott.
Lotte Shopping, the operator of Lotte Mart, said Friday that it would sell a regional head office in charge of Lotte Mart outlets in Shanghai and surrounding areas to Liqun, which operates supermarkets, convenience stores, logistics centers, hotels, and drugstores. It said the price would be about 291.4 billion won (272.3 million US dollars).
Out of 74 Lotte Mart outlets in the region, Liqun will take over 50 and the remainder will be shut down. The deal with Liqun came two weeks after Wumei Holdings, a Beijing-based retail group, acquired Lotte's Chinese unit in charge of operating 21 stores in and around Beijing for 248.5 billion won (232.2 million US dollars).
Lotte has invested an enormous amount of money in China. But it became the prime target of China's retaliatory onslaught for allowing US troops to set up a missile shield in its golf course in 2016. The group has decided to wrap up its hypermarket business in China due to snowballing losses.
Lotte, however, has been allowed by Chinese local authorities to resume construction at a major property project in China's northeastern city of Shenyang, Chinese sources said this week. Construction at the Lotte complex was suspended for latent fire hazards in November 2016.
Under its Shenyang project which costs some three trillion won (2.7 billion US dollars) and covers an area of 1.45 million square meters, Lotte is set to build apartments and a theme park in addition to a department store and a movie theater which have been already open. Seoul and Beijing agreed to normalize relations under an agreement in October last year, but Chinese steps have been gradual.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
