Shinsegae


Shinsegae is a South Korean department store franchise, along with several other businesses, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. The name Shinsegae literally means "New World" in Korean. Its flagship store in Centum City, Busan, was the world's largest department store at, surpassing Macy's flagship Herald Square in New York City in 2009.
Shinsegae was originally part of the Samsung Group chaebol, separated in the 1990s from the Samsung Group along with CJ Group , Saehan Group, and the Hansol Group. The chairman Lee Myung-hee is the daughter of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chull and younger sister of the chairman of Samsung Electronics Lee Kun-hee.
The group owns the brands Shinsegae and E-Mart, and is in direct competition with Lotte Shopping and Hyundai Department Store Group. Currently it is the largest retailer in South Korea.
Shinsegae is also famous for its long history. The main branch of Shinsegae is the oldest department store in Korea. The main building of the store was opened in 1930 as the Gyeongseong branch of Mitsukoshi, a Japanese department store franchise; Korea was occupied by the Japanese Empire at the time. The store was acquired in 1945 by the late founder of Samsung group, Lee Byung-chull, and renamed Donghwa Department Store. After the Korean War began, it was used for several years as a post exchange by the American army. In 1963, the store was given the name Shinsegae. The old building is currently used as a luxury shopping venue.
Shinsegae was the first credit card company in South Korea. They issued their own charge card from 1967 to 2000. In 2000, Shinsegae sold their credit card division to KorAm Bank, which was later acquired by Citibank Korea.

Stores

Shinsegae also has a small branch in Incheon International Airport, and a supermarket in Dogok-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
Shinsegae launched the Shinsegae Style Market, a smaller shopping mall mainly aimed at young customers, in 2010. Despite its name, the mall is managed by Shinsegae's subsidiary E-Mart.
E-Mart is a subsidiary of Shinsegae and a large discount store chain founded in South Korea, having stores in China, Korea and Mongolia. Domestically, E-Mart is the biggest discount store chain followed by Home Plus, and Lotte Mart.
In late May 2006, Shinsegae revealed plans to buy all 16 of the Wal-Mart stores in Korea. All of the country's Wal-Mart outlets were re-branded as E-Mart on October 2006. Wal-Mart exited the Korean market soon after.
Shinsegae spun off its E-Mart department into a separate corporation in 2012. The shopping mall was acquired by E-Mart in January 2014.

Subsidiaries

Shinsegae banned commercial images of actress Go Hyun-jung from their department stores following her divorce from vice chairman and CEO Chung Yong-jin.