Kakao Kim Beom-soo acquired eBay Korea “NO” because… “No Synergy”

Input 2021.03.17 11:22

Open market competitiveness is falling
The acquisition cost of up to 5 trillion won
Synergy with Kakao is also skeptical

Preliminary bidding for the acquisition of eBay Korea broke expectations Kakao (035720)Was absent. Kakao has been in the e-commerce (commerce) business with the feature of’Shopping Kakao Talk’ since 2010, and it is known that as the commerce market has grown recently, it is known to be thinking about various ways to expand the scope of luck. This is why we reviewed the acquisition card of eBay Korea, which operates open markets such as Gmarket and Auction.

Looking at investment banking (IB) and the industry on the 17th, Kakao did not participate in the preliminary bid to acquire eBay Korea, which ended the afternoon of the previous day. Kakao’s side is asking about whether to participate or not participate in the NDA, but it is known that there has been a controversy about participation in the pre-acquisition. An industry official said, “The working group has insisted on participating in the takeover, but I know that the founder, Chairman Kim Beom-soo, Kakao is no.”

Accordingly, Woongjin Coway, ranked 1st in the rental industry in 2019 (currently Coway (021240)) At the time of original bidding before takeover Netmarble (251270)As this surprise appeared, it seems unlikely that Kakao will participate in the preliminary bidding and then re-enter the main bidding.

In the first place, Kakao was evaluated as the best candidate for acquisition to grow a commerce powerhouse comparable to Naver and Coupang by introducing a large number of sellers and consumers to eBay Korea using financial functions such as banking and pay.

The industry believes that it was effective to judge that the synergy was not significant if Kakao’s acquisition of eBay Korea was given up to 5 trillion won against the background of Kakao’s absence before the takeover. Lee Jin-hyup, a researcher at Yuanta Securities, said, “Because the competitiveness of the open market is falling (other than attracting sellers here to Kakao commerce business), it is very likely that it was difficult to create a great synergy.” “While it fits well, I may have been skeptical that KakaoTalk has the power to increase eBay Korea’s traffic,” he said.

Kakao is also accelerating to expand its own commerce business. Recently, Kakao Talk has added a’Kakao Shopping’ tab to provide Kakao Talk gifts, as well as a variety of mobile shopping experiences such as Talk Deals, which are purchased by two or more people, and Kakao Shopping Live.

An official from Kakao Commerce explained, “If the biggest issues in the commerce industry are price competitiveness and logistics optimization, Kakao Commerce is focusing on diversifying product groups to increase user base and creating different colors.” One industry official said, “Apart from eBay Korea’s competitiveness, there is no disagreement over the fact that the domestic commerce market has a high growth potential, so we cannot rule out the possibility that Kakao will jump into another game in the future to increase the size of the commerce business. “He said.