Naver-SoftBank Joint Venture 'A Holdings'... First Chairman Lee Hae-jin
Published 25 Aug.2020 13:44(KST)
Updated 26 Aug.2020 09:04(KST)
Line and Yahoo Japan Management Integration to Conclude Around March Next Year
[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] The joint venture (JV) that will control Naver's Japanese subsidiary Line and Yahoo Japan has been named 'A Holdings.' Lee Hae-jin, the founder of Naver and Naver's Global Investment Officer (GIO), will serve as the inaugural chairman of A Holdings.
Line announced on the 25th that the name of the joint venture between Naver and Japan's SoftBank has been decided as A Holdings.
A Holdings is a joint venture with a 50-50 ownership split between Naver and SoftBank. A Holdings will become the largest shareholder controlling SoftBank's subsidiary 'Z Holdings.' Under Z Holdings, Line and Yahoo Japan will each become subsidiaries.
At A Holdings, GIO Lee will serve as chairman, and SoftBank CEO Ken Miyauchi will serve as representative director and president. Alongside them, Line CFO In-jun Hwang and SoftBank CFO Kazuhiko Fujihara will join the five-member board of directors. The remaining member will be appointed by SoftBank.
Previously, Naver and SoftBank agreed in November last year to integrate the management of Line and Yahoo Japan. Both parties plan to pursue synergies in their respective business areas while expanding into fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce, fintech, advertising, and online-to-offline (O2O) services. They aim to create a massive ecosystem with over 100 million users spanning Korea and Japan to compete with global platform operators.
The management integration of Line and Yahoo Japan recently received approval from the Japanese and Taiwanese government authorities and is expected to be completed around March next year. Although initially targeted for the second half of this year, the schedule was somewhat delayed due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.
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