Lotte Shopping Vice Chairman Kang Hee-tae is holding a general shareholders’ meeting held at the Lotte Retail Academy conference hall on the 6th floor of Lotte Big Market, Yeongdeungpo on the 23rd.
Lotte Group, which had not shown much movement to expand the e-commerce market, decided to enter the domestic used goods trading market by acquiring Used Nara. It is analyzed that Lotte Shopping, the acquisition entity, is aiming to preoccupy the domestic used trading market showing rapid growth.
According to the industry on the 23rd, Lotte Shopping signed a contract to acquire a 93.9% stake in Used Nara with Eugene Asset Management, NH Investment & Securities and Opus PE. It is known that Lotte Shopping is responsible for about 20 billion to 30 billion won out of the total transaction amount of 115 billion won.
An official from Lotte Shopping said, “It is correct that we have signed an acquisition contract in China, and the amount that Lotte Shopping has invested is between 20 billion won and 30 billion won.”
Used Nara is a company that started as Naver Cafe and has grown into the largest used trading platform in Korea. It is a very large platform with 23.3 million members of Naver Cafe. It is the best bridgehead to enter the used goods market.
Second-hand country was not a company that had been mentioned as a major e-commerce market for sale. In the meantime, the names of open market companies such as Tmon and eBay Korea have mainly risen and fallen in the M&A market.
It is analyzed that Lotte Shopping acquired Secondhand Nara in order to respond to the urgent competition in the e-commerce market. The domestic used market was only 4 trillion won in 2008, but it grew to 20 trillion won last year. Recently, the market outlook is not bad as second-hand transactions using online platforms such as applications are increasing.
The investment scale of Lotte Shopping is only 30 billion won, so it is difficult to give a big meaning to change the market. However, there is room for it to be regarded as a prelude to the future M&A work.
The biggest concern is the acquisition of eBay Korea. Lotte Shopping and Shinsegae jumped into the acquisition of eBay Korea, which costs about 5 trillion won in ransom alone. Although it is still in the preliminary bidding stage, there are talks from inside and outside the Lotte Group that the will to take over is significant.
Kang Hee-tae, vice chairman of Lotte Shopping, also publicly revealed at the Lotte Shopping Shareholders’ Meeting held on the 23rd that “we are sufficiently interested in the acquisition of eBay Korea.”