Seoul (AFP)
One of South Korea's top five fortunes, Kim Beom-su, founder of KakaoTalk, the country's most popular messaging app, pledged on Monday to donate more than half of his money to philanthropy.
Mr. Kim is one of South Korea's few self-made men and his fortune is estimated at $ 9.4 billion by Forbes magazine.
His decision is relatively unusual in an economy dominated by the chaebols, the large family conglomerates.
"I pledged to give more than half of my assets to solve social problems," Mr. Kim said on the Lunar New Year in a message to all employees of the Kakao Group, which AFP told AFP. could consult.
Founded in 2010, Kakao offers a whole host of mobile services.
Its flagship application, KakaoTalk, is installed on 90% of smartphones in circulation in South Korea.
Forbes is touting Kim as the "biggest winner" of 2020 in South Korea, a year when online services have taken off everywhere as a result of the pandemic.
The commitment to give more than half of your fortune to charities if you are a billionaire is at the heart of the "Giving Pledge" initiative, or "Promise of donation", launched in 2010 by the Americans Warren Buffett and Bill Gates .
More than 200 super-rich have pledged to do so, according to the Giving Pledge website.
But this initiative has struggled to find resonance in East Asia.
Few Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese fortunes are associated with it.
And until then, no Japanese and no South Korean had joined the movement.
In his message, Mr. Kim says he will sign a written pledge, while specifying that the details of his donation are not final.
Kakao posted 120 billion won ($ 107 million) in operating profit in the third quarter, up 103% year-on-year.
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