[Market Focus] Lotte Shopping Surges Over 7% on Profitability Improvement Assessment

Lotte Shopping is showing strong performance on May 12. This is interpreted as investor sentiment gathering due to securities analysts' assessments that profitability in its major business divisions is recovering.

As of 10:28 a.m. on this day, Lotte Shopping was trading at 77,600 won, up 5,500 won (7.63%) from the previous trading day.

This is attributed to the improvement in Lotte Shopping's financial structure through asset revaluation last year, as well as securities analysts' assessments that profitability in its major business divisions is recovering.

Joo Younghoon, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities, stated in a report on this day, "Lotte Shopping has presented a consolidated operating profit target of 600 billion won for this year, and I believe it is highly achievable." He explained, "The sales performance of major domestic businesses is improving, the depreciation expense has decreased due to the recognition of impairment losses last year, and the contribution from overseas businesses is expanding. All of these are positive factors."

Joo also added, "The dividend yield is about 5.3%, which is higher than the industry average, and this is also seen as an attractive point." He raised the target price from 80,000 won to 90,000 won.

In the first quarter of this year, Lotte Shopping posted sales of 3.4568 trillion won and operating profit of 148.2 billion won, exceeding market consensus (expectations).