The 4th Mobile Carrier StageFive Separates from Kakao Affiliation

Stage Five, a key player in the 4th mobile carrier consortium and a budget phone company, has been spun off from Kakao.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 28th, Good Plan Fin Direct Union No. 3 acquired a 19.2% stake from Kakao Investment, Kakao's investment specialist company, resulting in a change of the largest shareholder. The union includes Stage Five executives and employees, including CEO Seo Sang-won.

Previously, since 2017, Stage Five was classified as a Kakao affiliate, but on December 18 last year, a new investment union announced it would purchase 20.94% of shares from Kakao Investment. However, Stage Five stated that the remaining approximately 1.74% stake is scheduled to be acquired later according to contract terms.

Separately, CEO Seo Sang-won holds a 6.34% stake in Stage Five. It is also known that satellite communication equipment company Intellian Technologies has completed acquiring a 5.36% stake in Stage Five.

Meanwhile, Stage Five has selected Shinhan Investment Corp. as the lead underwriter and NH Investment & Securities as the joint underwriter and is preparing for an IPO. The Stage X consortium led by Stage Five won the bid for the 5G 28 GHz band frequency at 430.1 billion KRW on the 31st of last month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.