It has been confirmed that the son and daughter of the 55-year-old Kakao founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors attend Kim's private company, who owns Kakao shares.



According to Kakao et al., Chairman Kim's son, Kim Sang-bin (28) and daughter Kim Ye-bin (26), have been working at K Cube Holdings, a privately held company that has a 100% stake since last year.



K Cube Holdings currently owns an 11.21% stake in Kakao.



Chairman Kim owns a 13.74% stake in Kakao and a 100% stake in K-Cube Holdings, so it is estimated that he actually owns a 24.95% stake in Kakao.



Kakao is in a position that K Cube Holdings is the private company of Chairman Kim, and Kakao is only a shareholder, but in the industry, K Cube Holdings is actually Kakao's holding company.



K Cube Holdings is known as an investment and management consulting company, but has not shown any official corporate activities.



K-Cube Holdings announced last month that it would merge a company called'Tipo Invest' on March 1 of this year, but Tipo Invest is also a company that Chairman Kim owned 100%.



In the industry, it is speculated that Chairman Kim is preparing for a'Kakao succession' when he puts his son and daughter into K Cube Holdings and organizes the structure of a private company.



Chairman Kim recently donated 60,000 shares (worth 26.2 billion won) to his wife Hyung Mi-sun and their children Sang-bin and Ye-bin.



However, Kakao said, "K-Cube Holdings is a private company of Chairman Kim, and I know it has nothing to do with succession."



K Cube Holdings is actually a'family company' of Chairman Kim, and it is known that there are no employees other than the six or seven close to Chairman Kim.



As of last year's public announcement, Chairman Kim's younger brother Kim Hwa-young (52) is the CEO.



Chairman Kim's wife, Hyung Mi-seon, is also making a name as Executive Director of Kita.



K Cube Holdings spent 1.58 billion won in 2018 and 1.4 billion won in 2019.



(Photo = Yonhap News)