DaumKakao will list on Kosdaq in October

The shareholders of Daum Communications and Kakao Corporation approved the companies’ merger yesterday in meetings held separately at Daum’s headquarters in Jeju and Kakao’s headquarters in Pangyo, Gyeonggi.

The agreement was the last step in the legal process toward launching the joint corporation DaumKakao since the nation’s No. 2 portal company and the largest mobile messenger service announced the merger in May.

It was decided at the shareholders’ meetings that Kakao Chairman Kim Bum-soo would be the largest shareholder when the company is launched, while Kakao CEO Lee Seok-woo and Daum CEO Choi Sae-hoon were named as co-representatives.

The IT giant, worth 10 trillion won ($9.87 billion) in market capitalization, will be listed on the Kosdaq on Oct. 1. It is expected that DaumKakao will be the largest company on the Kosdaq index in terms of market share, beating the current No. 1 Celltrion, which is worth 4.2 trillion won.

Kyobo Securities released a report suggesting that DaumKakao shares would be priced at about 200,000 won.

“There are high expectations for DaumKakao to create a new profit model through new businesses,” said Lee Seong-bin, an analyst at Kyobo Securities.

Lee also predicted that DaumKakao will be successful due to Kakao’s influence on the domestic market.

Since the merger has created a new mobile and portal industry giant, changes are expected in the Korean Internet business led by Naver.

“Kakao has recently announced that it will start new businesses such as mobile payments and taxi services,” said an analyst at Tongyang Securities. “Although the specific services of DaumKakao have not yet been outlined, industry experts are expecting the launch of services that link mobile messenger KakaoTalk with Daum’s search service.”

BY kim jung-yoon [kjy@joongang.co.kr]