27 affiliates join initiative, including Lotte Department Store and Lotte Engineering & Construction

Payments to arrive average 8 days early, before holiday break

Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin [Lotte]
Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin [Lotte]

Lotte announced Wednesday it will make early payments totaling 949.5 billion won ($691 million) to more than 12,000 partner companies ahead of the chuseok holiday.

Twenty-seven affiliates are joining the effort, including Lotte Department Store, Lotte Engineering & Construction, Lotte Global Logistics and Lotte Home Shopping. Participating affiliates plan to settle payments before the chuseok holiday break, an average of eight days ahead of their originally scheduled dates.

Lotte has made early payments to more than 10,000 partner companies every year since 2013. The conglomerate has also established a shared-growth fund worth around 1 trillion won to help partners secure operating capital, and was the first large Korean conglomerate to introduce a mutual-benefit payment system across all its affiliates, settling trade payments in cash equivalents.

"We hope this early payment of supplier fees will provide real, practical relief to our partners as chuseok approaches," a Lotte official said. "We plan to continue pursuing a range of shared-growth initiatives so that we can build a healthy industry ecosystem together with our partners."


soho0902@heraldcorp.com