Kakao CEO responds to executive's Facebook rant

Kakao CEO Hong Eun-taek [NEWS1]

Kakao CEO Hong Eun-taek has promised his employees “a thorough and transparent probe” into a swirl of grievances that a company executive recently raised against the company in a Facebook post. The post was yet another strike against the company, which was already saddled with allegations of stock manipulation during its acquisition of K-pop agency SM Entertainment.

“I’m sure that everyone is feeling confused by happenings in the past couple of days,” Hong wrote in a statement that was issued to Kakao employees on Thursday. “The company launched an internal investigation organized by Kakao’s compliance committee and outside attorneys into the matters raised by executive Kim Jeong-ho […] We will thoroughly probe [into the allegations] and transparently share the outcome.”

Hong’s post was Kakao's first official response to Kim's online criticism.

Kakao executive Kim Jeong-ho took to Facebook on Thursday and Friday to debase Kakao’s corporate culture, criticizing his colleagues' closed-door decision-making process when choosing a third-party builder to build a digital content production center in Jeju.

The cost of the project, according to Kim, was around 70 to 80 billion won ($61.4 million).

Kakao was already suspected of favoring a certain construction company for its data center in Ansan and for Seoul Arena, its large-scale K-pop performance venue in northern Seoul, according to local media reports.

Those projects are said to cost around 143.6 billion won and 300.8 billion won respectively.

Kim also criticized Kakao’s corporate golf membership program, which he says he was ordered by Kakao founder Kim Beom-su to discontinue as “certain departments were habitually abusing” it.

According to Hong, the membership program is “already in the works to be sold off” and the retrieved sum will be used to expand corporate welfares.

“I ask everyone to wait until the investigation results come out and hope that people will not prejudge about the probe or the outcome until then,” Hong said.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]