Employees are arriving at work in the lobby of Kakao Agit in Seongnam, Gyeonggi./Seongnam=Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@
Kakao has decided to inject a large amount of funds into its AI and cloud specialized subsidiaries to strengthen its competitiveness.
On the 13th, Kakao announced that it will participate in a 70 billion KRW rights offering of its AI development subsidiary, Kakao Brain. It plans to pay 40 billion KRW on the 19th and 30 billion KRW on October 19.
Kakao Brain is in charge of developing the super-large AI "KoGPT 2.0," which will be unveiled in the third quarter of this year. Based on this, it also aims to launch the AI conversational chatbot "KoChatGPT" within the year.
On the same day, Kakao also announced that it invested 100 billion KRW in Kakao Enterprise, its B2B business affiliate. The interest rate is 7.36% per annum and will be adjusted every three months. Although the transaction was disclosed as operating funds, it appears to be closely related to company restructuring.
Kakao Enterprise revealed a voluntary retirement plan to its employees during an internal meeting on the same day.
A Kakao Enterprise official explained, "Since May, we have been conducting community relocation support processes and job transition programs to reorganize the business centered on cloud and to revitalize management. We are starting a voluntary retirement program for those who wish to participate."
Earlier in May, Kakao Enterprise carried out an organizational restructuring to transition into two company-in-company (CIC) systems responsible for the two core businesses, "cloud" and "search."
Additionally, Kakao announced that it will inject 56 billion KRW in business funds through participation in a rights offering of its subsidiary Seoul Arena, and from the 14th of this month to the 13th of next month, it will dispose of 13,959 common shares (approximately 720.29 million KRW) to pay bonuses to employees.
A Kakao official stated, "The investment related to Seoul Arena is a continuously ongoing business. The sale of treasury shares for bonus payments is also a matter that is carried out from time to time."
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