Shin Dong-bin

Shin Dong-bin (Korean: 신동빈; Hanja: 辛東彬; born February 14, 1956) is a Korean-Japanese businessman. He also has a Japanese name Akio Shigemitsu (Japanese: 重光昭夫, romanized: Shigemitsu Akio). As of 2012, he was CEO of the South Korean conglomerate Lotte Corporation and the Japanese Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team. He is the second son of Shin Kyuk-ho (Takeo Shigemitsu), founder and first CEO of Lotte and his Japanese wife. He is the younger brother of Hiroyuki Shigemitsu (Korean name Shin Dong-ju), CEO of the Japanese Lotte Group. He graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo with a B.A. in economics in 1977 and from Columbia University with an MBA.

He started his career at Nomura Securities' London branch in 1980 and joined Lotte in 1988, when he started at Lotte Chemical. In 2011, he became Chairman of Lotte Korea. Upon taking control of the group, Shin embarked on a series of M&As, including the acquisition of Hi-Mart, Hyundai Logistics, The New York Palace Hotel, and the chemical arm of Samsung - Samsung Fine Chemicals and Samsung BP Chemicals.

Shin was engaged in a number of disputes with his sibling, Shin Dong-ju, over the control of Lotte and gained control of the company after a long legal battle.

On December 22, 2017, a Seoul district court handed down to Shin a two-year suspension of a jail sentence with embezzlement and breach of trust in October 2016.

On February 13, 2018, Shin was sentenced to 30 months in prison after the Seoul Central District Court found him guilty of charges stemming from Lotte's decision to give ₩7 billion (US$6.5 million) to Choi Soon-sil, a confidante of former President of South Korea Park Geun-hye, in exchange for government favors in providing a license to operate duty-free stores. On October 5, 2018, a South Korean appeals upheld Shin's conviction, but also agreed to suspend his sentence to time already served, thus setting him free.