South Korea’s Homeplus appoints Lee Jae-hoon as CEO

He has been the CEO in various businesses such as KFC and Pizza Hut in South Korea.

South Korean hypermarket chain Homeplus has appointed Carver Korea’s chief executive officer (CEO) Lee Jae-hoon as its new CEO starting May, after Lim Il-soon resigned from the position in January, IGD reported.

Lee has shown decades of CEO experience leading various businesses, including KFC Korea, Pizza Hut Korea. Lee began his career at the Bank of Korea as a trader in 1989, after he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School MBA program.

Homeplus has seen its revenues as well as operating profits dwindle in recent years, IGD noted. During the fiscal year of 2019 (from March 2019 to February 2020), the company's annual revenue stood at $6.5b (KRW7.3t), a 5% fall from the previous year.

The company is also expected to have a further fall in revenue and profits during the March 2020 to February 2021 period due to the economic shock from COVID-19. Homeplus also closed a few of its regional branches.

“The attention is now on whether he could turn around Homeplus’ deteriorating revenues,” IGD’s senior retail analyst Jiong-Jiong Yu said.