Shinsegae

Shinsegae is a South Korean group of companies with headquarters in Seoul. The name means New World.

History

Originally the company was founded in the 1930s as a subsidiary of the Japanese company Mitsukoshi. In 1963 it was taken over by the Samsung Group and renamed from Donghwa in Shinsegae in November. In August 1985, the IPO took place. In November 1991, the company was spun off from the Samsung Group and was self-employed. In December 1996 the first e- mart store was opened. In 1997 the first store was opened in China.

2006 three more E-mart stores were opened in China.

Today

To the company owns the brands Shinsegae and E-mart. Direct competitors are Lotte Shopping and Hyundai Department Store Group.

Shinsegae employed in December 2004 16.383 employees.

In July 2005 the Company had seven department stores, 79 discount stores in Korea and six in China. Revenues in 2006 amounted to 6.5 trillion won.

On May 22, 2006, the Company announced that it wanted to take over the 16 markets with 3,300 employees of Wal -Mart for 882 million U.S. dollars (about 690 million euros ). This, however, the approval of the Antitrust Authority is still required. President of the Group 's Koo Hak -su.

E-mart is the largest retailer in South Korea, with a market share of about 30 percent ( as of 2006) and about 9,000 employees.