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E-Mart ready to pack out of China after selling Shanghai stores

Collected: 2017.09.25

Distributed: 2017.09.26

Source: Go Direct

E-Mart Inc., a discount store unit of South Korea’s retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group, has sold its five outlets in Shanghai, leaving just one store left in China before its full exit from the world’s biggest consumer market.

According to industry sources on Sunday, E-Mart recently signed an agreement with Charoen Pokphand Group, a major agro-industrial and food conglomerate in Thailand, to sell its five stores located in Shanghai, China. The two parties did not disclose the sale price, but the E-Mart stores are reported to have been offered at far below their book price of 68 billion won ($60 million), according to sources. The E-Mart outlets sold to CP Group will likely transform into Lotus markets, the grocery chain brand of the Thai company.

E-mart’s phase-out exit from China accelerated following Beijing-sponsored boycott of Korean brands due to political row over Seoul’s deployment of a U.S. antimissile shield. It will also dispose of the last outlet in Xishan in the outskirts of Beijing within the year.

E-mart which first entered China in 1997 once ran 26 stores. Due to mounting losses, it closed 11 outlets in China. From 2013 to last year, losses amounted to 150 billion won.

The company plans to focus more on Mongolia and other Southeast Asian countries. It opened its first E-Mart store in Mongolia in July last year, and the second store is slated for opening on Friday due to better-than-expected response.

The company is also mulling opening additional stores in Vietnam and branching out to Laos and Cambodia, said an unnamed E-Mart official.

By Sohn Il-seon

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