Kakao to take over Daum via US$3.3bil listing

SEOUL: Kakao Corp, the dominant messaging app firm in South Korea, has agreed to buy Internet portal company Daum Communications in a US$3.3bil stock deal, circumventing a potentially timeconsuming IPO process with a back door listing.

With the deal, Kakao is seeking to mount a serious challenge to Naver Corp, the country’s biggest Internet portal operator and owner of Line the dominant messaging app in Japan and which has been more successful expanding overseas.