Lotte’s Shin Dong-joo abandons Japanese name in Japan

Lotte’s Shin Dong-joo abandons Japanese name in Japan. October. 20, 2015 07:26. peacechaos@donga.com.

Shin Dong-joo, the eldest son of the founder and former vice chairman of Lotte Holdings in Japan, is known to have dropped his Japanese name, Hiroyuki Shigemitsu, when he became head of Kojyunsya that sits at the top of Lotte’s Korea-Japan governance structure on Wednesday.

According to what the Dong-A Ilbo confirmed from Japan’s Justice Ministry of Kojyunsya’s certified copy of real estate register, Shin changed his Japanese name to Korean name. He also used a Korean address of his residence starting with “Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea” instead of his previous address of “Sibuya, Japan.” Kojyunsya is the largest shareholder of Lotte Holdings, the holding company of Korea-Japan Lotte Group, with a 28.1-percent share.

The registration of Korean name means that he explicitly showed intention to carry out business with his Korean name in Japan also. He has a Korean nationality although he doesn’t know how to speak Korean. Analysts say despite inconvenience that could arise in doing business in Japan he wanted to clarify his identity and secure managerial power of Lotte Group in Korea.

Up to present, Lotte Group family had used Japanese names in Japan operations for convenience, with Founder and Chairman Shin Kyuk-ho using Takeo Shigemitsu and Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin using Akio Shigemitsu. They used Japanese names in all officials documents and while interviewing with media and when attending events. Due to this reason, many in Japan have considered Lotte as a Japanese company.

On the register copy it was written “Akio Shigemitsu was dismissed on October 14.” For the auditor position, Osamu Imamura was replaced with Yoshihide Hirowatari who had supported forcing Chairman Shin Kyuk-ho to resign in July.