Under terms of the deal, that springboards the South Korean firm into the European market for the first time, the Asian company will purchase a 100 per cent stake in privately-held Belgian boxed-chocolate firm which competes with Switzerland's Lindt chocolate and Italy's Ferrero Rocher.
" Our acquisition of Guylian makes our entry into the European premium chocolate market and is an important milestone in Lotte's development as a truly global group," said Sang-Hoo Kim, president of Lotte Confectionery.
An ambitious firm that posted net revenues of € 23bn in 2007, Lotte Confectionery recently signed-off on a deal to buy Japanese bakery firm Ginza Cozy Corner for €123.6m. And last year, the South Korean company, that started out over 30 years ago with a ' tiny pack of chewing gum' , created a €50 million venture with Hershey to jointly operate a chocolate factory near Shanghai, China.
The market for premium chocolate, particularly the dark variety, is enjoying an upward shift in sales on the back of mushrooming consumer desire for a slice of luxury, that sees chocolate aficionados buying less, but splashing out on more premium varieties when they do make a purchase.
"Even though people are still cutting back on the amount of chocolate they eat, sales in the two years to 2007 saw no less than a 10 per cent increase in value in the UK," states a recent report from market analysts Mintel.
Sales in the UK alone for dark chocolate hit €106m in 2007, almost doubling - by 96 per cent - between 2005 and 2007.