Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin has resigned as chief executive officer of Lotte Hotel Co. in a move projected to be a part of its steps towards initial public offering.

Hotel Lotte in a regulatory filing on Wednesday said Shin Dong-bin tendered his resignation as the legal representative on Dec. 31, 2019. His resignation comes five years after he became chief executive officer of the group’s hotel business. The group chairman will maintain his position as an unregistered executive at Hotel Lotte.

With the change, Hotel Lotte is now led by four chief executives – Lee Bong-chul, head of hotel & service business unit; Kim Hyun-sik, head of Lotte hotels; Choi Hong-hoon, head of amusement park business; and Lee Kap, head of duty-free unit.

The group said Shin’s resignation as Hotel Lotte CEO is part of its efforts to strengthen responsible management.

Lotte group chairman also stepped down as CEO of Lotte Engineering & Construction last month. But Shin has maintained his CEO position at the group’s holding entity Lotte Corp., Lotte Confectionery Co., Lotte Chemical Corp.

Market watchers anticipate Lotte Group, Korea’s fifth largest conglomerate with businesses spanning retail, food, chemical, and hotel, to speed up its process to get Hotel Lotte listed on the country’s stock exchange, which would help simplify the group’s notoriously complex cross-shareholding structure.

Chairman Shin’s resignation would also remove possible risks in initial public offering review process, which looks into a company management’s ethics. Shin was sentenced to 30 months in prison with four years of probation on charges of bribe offering and breach of duty in a corruption scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye after the top court upheld the appeals ruling in October last year.

By Pulse

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