SEOUL ¨C Shin Kyuk-ho, a wartime migrant to Japan who returned home to build a little-known chewing-gum maker into the Lotte Group, South Korea¡¯s biggest retailer, has died. He was 97.
Shin had been hospitalized in Seoul for various age-related symptoms and died Sunday at 4:29 p.m., Lotte Group said in a statement.
He was among the last of a generation of entrepreneurs who teamed up with the government in the 1960s to rebuild war-torn South Korea, leading to a rapid industrialization surge that became known as the ¡°Miracle on the Han River.¡± The growth spurt set the stage for Lotte along with global juggernauts such as Samsung and Hyundai, while entrenching a business landscape dominated by family-run industrial conglomerates known as chaebol.
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