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.