[News Figures] Bae Jaehyun, Kakao Chief Investment Officer

A Deal-Making Gambler... Opinions Are Divided

Bae Jae-hyun, Chief Investment Officer at Kakao, is the 'key man' who led Kakao's external expansion. He increased corporate value through trillion-won scale mergers and acquisitions (M&A) such as Loen Entertainment and SM Entertainment (SM). On the other hand, his characteristic gambler's spirit in pushing deals aggressively is also evaluated to have led to the SM incident. On the 26th, Bae was sent to the prosecution on charges of violating the Capital Markets Act in connection with allegations of stock price manipulation of SM.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Born in 1980, Bae graduated from Sogang University with a degree in Business Administration in 2004 and joined the CJ Group. At CJ, he served as the head of the Future Strategy Office, discovering new growth engines for the group. In 2015, he left CJ and moved to Kakao, leading the organization as the head of the Big Deal Team, Kakao's investment control tower.

In 2016, he acquired Loen, the operator of Melon, the nation's number one music streaming service, for 1.87 trillion won. In 2021, he consecutively acquired North American webtoon and web novel platforms Tapas and Radish, as well as the shopping platform Zigzag. By successfully closing consecutive trillion-won scale big deals, he solidified his position within the organization. Three years after joining Kakao, he was promoted to head of the Investment Strategy Office, and in 2020, he led the expansion of the group's business portfolio as Chief Investment Officer (CIO). Bae played a major role in attracting large-scale investments. He was active in Kakao Bank's institutional fundraising and Kakao Mobility's capital raising processes. Earlier this year, when Kakao Entertainment attracted trillion-won scale investments from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund and others, Bae also led the efforts.

Thanks to these achievements, Bae was appointed as an inside director of Kakao this year. He expanded his footprint to affiliates by serving as a non-executive director at Kakao Mobility and Kakao Style, and as an inside director at Kakao Piccoma. He also oversees investments in the CA Council, Kakao's community control tower. As the right-hand man of Kim Beom-su, Kakao's founder and head of the Future Initiative Center, Bae has been consistently mentioned as a candidate for Kakao's next CEO.

On the other hand, opinions are divided regarding his gambler's spirit that led to mega deals. It is well known that when acquiring Loen, all Kakao executives opposed it, but Bae pushed it through to the end. After Melon became Kakao's cash cow, Bae's position was solidified, but his aggressive style sometimes caused internal backlash. When Kakao acquired SM this year, it is known that Bae led the aggressive bidding in the public tender battle against HYBE. Financial authorities believe that Bae and others conspired with the private equity fund operator One Asia Partners to raise SM's stock price with the intent to obstruct HYBE's public tender offer.