Lotte Shopping Speeding Up Selling of Assets, Unloading 121 Stores This Year

Lotte Shopping Co will sell 121 brick-and-mortar stores within this year amid the new coronavirus impact on the retail industry.

South Korea's biggest department store chain has initially been planning to sell 200 of them over the next three to five years but decided to hasten the process of selling less-profitable assets to improve its financial health.

The company will also focus on strengthening its e-commerce business.

On May 14, Lotte Shopping said it would shut down five department stores, 16 discount stores, 25 LOHBs outlets, and 75 supermarkets by December.

The company pointed out that while there will be no forced layoffs during the sale of the assets, some job cuts are unavoidable at the stores that would be sold.

From posting a net profit of 109.17 billion in the first quarter of last year, Lotte Shopping suffered a net loss of 43.33 billion from January to March.