At the end of last year, Lotte Group, which faced a liquidity crisis, held its first half-year Value Creation Meeting (VCM) on the 9th. About 80 people, including Chairman Shin Dong-bin and representatives from all subsidiaries of Lotte Group, attended the meeting. Shin Yoo-yeol, who had been on a business trip to the United States for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), also attended the meeting immediately after returning to Korea. Perhaps due to the group's atmosphere, all the attending representatives entered the conference room with stern expressions, maintaining silence.
After noon on the same day, Lotte Group subsidiary presidents entered through the front and back gates of Lotte World Tower in Songpa District, Seoul, to attend the VCM. The VCM, held every January and July, is a meeting that diagnoses Lotte Group's management situation in the first and second halves of the year and seeks mid- to long-term strategies.
According to Lotte, Chairman Shin Dong-bin instructed attendees to arrive early at the meeting venue since he would attend the 'Artificial Intelligence (AI) Challenge Showcase' before the VCM. The showcase is an event that introduces AI innovation cases within the group, with nine subsidiaries, including LOTTE INNOVATE and Daehong Planning, participating to present excellent AI activity cases.
According to Lotte, Chairman Shin heard explanations about Lotte Chemical's AI-based color prediction system along with the representatives from each subsidiary. The AI-based color prediction system is a technology that uses AI to quickly find the plastic color combinations desired by customers. Lotte Chemical, regarded as a core subsidiary of Lotte Group, is reportedly striving to achieve results by introducing AI systems to increase development and production speed as well as enhance engineering technical capabilities.
The representatives of Lotte Group subsidiaries maintained silence in response to the press's questions, wearing expressions devoid of smiles. Jeong Jun-ho, the representative of Lotte Department Store, did not respond when asked, 'Could you tell us what will be discussed today (the 9th)?' Nam Chang-hee, the representative of LOTTE HIMART, who entered with him, and Kang Seong-hyun, the representative of Lotte Mart, also responded shortly with a stern expression, saying, 'We will talk about it later,' when asked by reporters if they had been briefed on what would be discussed.
In addition, Tamatsuka Kenichi, the representative of Lotte Japan, Park Ik-jin, the representative of Lotte e-commerce division (LOTTE ON), Kim Dong-ha, the representative of Lotte Duty Free, and Lee Don-tae, the head of the design strategy center at Lotte Holdings, also moved quickly to attend the VCM but did not mention any planned meeting contents or management directions.
The first person to arrive at the meeting venue that day was Shin Yoo-yeol, the head of the Future Growth Office at Lotte Holdings and the Global Strategy Office at LOTTE BIOTECH, who was promoted from executive director to vice president in last November's regular personnel reshuffle. Vice President Shin arrived at the venue about two hours before the showcase started. He is the son of Chairman Shin Dong-bin.
Vice President Shin is reported to have attended the VCM immediately after returning from the CES 2025 held in Las Vegas, U.S. He visited the LOTTE INNOVATE exhibition hall at CES on the 7th (local time) to encourage the staff and then looked around the exhibition halls of big tech companies like Samsung Electronics, TCL, and Sony, where various technological trends are integrated with AI for business development. Vice President Shin has attended the VCM every year since 2023.
That day, Chairman Shin Dong-bin is expected to convey a message regarding the group's management policy to the representatives of the subsidiaries attending the meeting. Earlier, on the 2nd, he urged employees in his New Year's speech, saying, 'The economic situation is more challenging than ever, and without innovation, we could face a bigger crisis,' and emphasized that 'More rigorous reforms are needed this year.'