South Korea’s Kakao Entertainment Corp., an entertainment, mass media, and publishing company has secured $930 million from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Singapore’s Pwarp Investment.
The entertainment company said it will raise 1.2 trillion won through the issue of 2.26 million shares at 255,116 won apiece to the two countries’ wealth funds.
“It is significant that we were able to secure funds of this scale at a time when both the Korean and global markets face a lot of uncertainty and investment sentiment is weaker,” Kakao Corp.’s chief investment officer Bae Jae-hyun said in a statement.
Kakao Entertainment will then use the capital to expand its company.
The company also produces a variety of shows for Netflix, especially since the advent of Squid Game sparked an interest in fans for Korean content from the world over.
The move by Saudi Arabia’s PIF is the kingdom’s efforts to lower its reliance on oil exports. Saudi Arabia has also boosted its an interest in games and entertainment providers and has invested in Korea’s NCSoft Corp., Tokyo-listed Nexon Co.
The sovereign wealth fund has also lifted its stake in Japan’s Nintendo Co. from 5 percent to 6.1 percent.
Kakao Entertainment has also been considering a New York IPO since 2021, however, it seems unlikely that the company will announce a listing given “cratering tech valuations worldwide,” according to a report by Bloomberg.
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