South Korea: Lotus Korea integrated into Lotus Bakeries Group

Lotus Korea, a distribution company which imports Belgian Lotus caramelized biscuits and the US Hershey brand of chocolates, has been acquired by Lotus Bakeries Group.

Through the agreement, Lotus Bakeries now owns 100% of the shares in Lotus Korea, valued at 22 billion won (US$20 million).

Jan Boone, CEO of the group, said “Lotus Bakeries is already active for many years in Asia. The start of an own sales office in China last year and now the acquisition of Lotus Korea is a unique opportunity to support the further growth in the important Asian market”.

“From a commercial point of view, we will continue to focus on our strategically most important product Lotus caramelized biscuit (Biscoff)”, he added. “Morever, it offers opportunities to further develop or introduce other Lotus products such as waffles, caramelized biscuit spread or Dinosaurus”.

The annual sales revenue and operating profit of Lotus Korea are around 40 billion won (US$37 million) and 3.5 billion won (US$3.2 million) respectively. The Lotus Bakeries group recorded turnover of $348 million ($378 million) in 2014.

Source: Lotus Bakeries / Korea Economic Daily