Kakao Entertainment has officially been launched

[satoori]

Kakao Entertainment has officially been launched. The result of an internal merger of subsidiaries Kakao M and Kakao Page, the new firm will operate under a two-part system of M Company, focusing on creative contents, and Page Company, expanding on IP and platform businesses. CR.

 

Kakao Page, Kakao M to merge to become $9 bn worth entertainment giant

South Korean internet giant Kakao Corp. is creating an all-in-one entertainment giant by merging Kakao Page Corp. and Kakao M Corp., whose combined value could reach as high as 10 trillion won ($9 billion).

A plan to combine Kakao Page and Kakao M was approved by each company’s board of directors on Monday, the two companies confirmed on the same day. Each company will hold a general shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday for final approval for the merger plan. The two companies aim to complete the merger on March 1 and start anew as Kakao Entertainment.

Under merger terms, Kakao Page will put Kakao M under its arm with a merger ratio of 1.31 Kakao Page common shares per one Kakao M share.

The companies expect that the combined unit’s enterprise value could reach up to 10 trillion won. They expect their parent Kakao Corp. to seek to list the newly merged unit on the stock market as early as next year. Kakao Page has been preparing for its own initial public offering this year while internally estimating its worth at 5 trillion won.

Kakao Page is mobile content creator affiliate of Kakao, the operator of Korea’s dominant chat app Kakao Talk. It registered operating incomes of 30.6 billion won on 257 billion won revenue for full 2019 on a consolidated basis. There are 16 affiliates and subsidiaries operating under Kakao Page, which owns some 8,500 intellectual properties.

Kakao M is responsible for the entertainment business of the Kakao empire. It has seven talent agencies and four music labels plus production houses for performing arts, TV shows, and movies. It also runs its own video streaming platform called Kakao TV, which also produces shows.

When simply combined, Kakao Page and Kakao M’s total operating income would be 50 billion won on revenue of 610 billion won for full 2019.

The merger comes at a time of growing importance of original stories, especially in content creation for mobile services. Comics and fictions that start off on mobile platforms are gaining more attention amid growing popularity, and they are even reproduced as TV shows and movies for greater markets. Reflecting the trend, Korea’s other internet giant Naver Corp. recently acquired Wattpad Corp., a Canada-based online storytelling platform operator, for $600 million to create a giant content company and appeal to greater audiences.

The merger also is expected to protect Kakao from Google’s hefty commission fees for app sales. The global IT giant will require all app developers distributing software on its Google Play Store to use its app payment system in Korea from October 2022, as well as take a 30 percent fee from developers on all in-app purchased within its market.

On Tuesday, shares of Kakao closed down 2.6 percent at 461,000 won, taking a breather from five straight days of gains. CR.

 

[satoori]

14 minutes ago, Your Biggest Fan said:

And here I thought Kakao was under Line with Webtoon and Wattpad. Proves I don't know squat about how any other companies that aren't strictly Kpop are divided.

haha it can get confusing! The main reason I know a bit about LINE is due Bts partnership with them for BT21.

But yea KAKAO and LINE are two separate companies. (both with popular characters, we've all seen!)

LINE is under NAVER

WEBTOON is under NAVER and recently NAVER acquired WATTPAD.

[satoori]

 

OT: I'm curious how this will affect the whole Spotify drama..  

[satoori]

1 hour ago, GetRapper said:

Hmmm...I thought LINE was Japanese since I used it when I lived there. Learn something new everyday!

Yea LINE is very popular in Japan too. So it's understandable!

But it's actually a Tokyo based subsidiary of Naver

 

 

A short timeline for anyone interested~ ^^

Spoiler

 

Timeline

2000 - Line Corporation was founded in 2000, as Hangame Japan as a part of Hangame, a South Korean game company owned by NHN at the time.

2003 - The company was renamed to NHN Japan.

2007 - Naver later established another Japanese subsidiary, Naver Japan which managed the Naver search engine in Japan before its demise.

2010 - Naver Japan would later acquire Livedoor.

2012 - Naver merged the three entities (NHN Japan, Naver Japan, Livedoor) into a new subsidiary known as NHN Japan.

2013 - The company changed its name and traded as Line Corporation.

2013 - Later, NHN split into two companies, Naver Corporation and NHN Entertainment Corporation which the latter created a new NHN Japan Corporation subsidiary.

2019 - In November 2019 it was announced that Line and Z Holdings (formerly Yahoo! Japan) were going to be under a new subsidiary under Naver Corporation and SoftBank Group which will be completed in October 2020, later postponed to March 2021.  CR.