The founder of South Korea's sprawling retail conglomerate Lotte Group has died at the age of 97, company officials said Sunday. Shin Kyuk-ho's reputation was tarnished in his final years when the wheelchair-bound tycoon was convicted of professional malpractice and embezzling from the firm to benefit his relatives in late 2017.

He was sentenced to four years in prison but was allowed to stay out of jail on health grounds. Born in the southern city of Ulsan, Shin stowed away on a ship to Japan at the age of 18 to seek his fortune and established Lotte to manufacture chewing gum in Tokyo soon after World War II. The business later grew to include dozens of subsidiaries in the food, retail and hotel industries.