Lotte talks up duty-free business as probes widen

Singapore

LOTTE Group, South Korea's fifth-largest family-run conglomerate, is under growing pressure to bolster its duty-free shopping business after shelving one of the year's biggest initial public offerings in the midst of a deepening crisis.

Hotel Lotte Co, one of the group's main units, singled out the importance of its duty-free expansion on Monday after scrapping an IPO worth as much as US$4.5 billion. The renewed focus on the business, which accounted for almost 90 per cent of the hotel unit's profits last year, highlights Lotte's limited options as probes into the company widen.