[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Jisun] Kim Beom-soo, the founder of Kakao and Chairman of the Management Innovation Committee, was interrogated by prosecutors for 8 hours on the 24th, a day after his arrest on allegations of stock manipulation during the acquisition of SM Entertainment.
According to the legal community, the Financial Investigation Division 2 of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office (led by Chief Prosecutor Jang Dae-gyu) summoned Kim from the Seoul Southern Detention Center at 10 a.m. This interrogation took place 33 hours after his arrest early the previous day.
After completing the investigation and reviewing the records, Kim returned to the detention center around 6 p.m. Although the prosecution had requested his appearance the previous afternoon, Kim submitted a non-appearance statement citing health reasons, which postponed the investigation.
The prosecutors are focusing on whether Kim directly ordered or approved the stock manipulation. Kim was arrested on charges of manipulating SM Entertainment's stock price during the acquisition process last February to hinder a public tender offer by rival company HYBE. The stock price was allegedly manipulated to stay above HYBE's tender offer price of 120,000 KRW.
The prosecution believes that Kim, as the group's top decision-maker, received and approved the stock manipulation plan in advance. They also suspect that the decision to acquire SM Entertainment was made under Kim's approval to cover the growing net losses of Kakao Entertainment, which increased from 29.8 billion KRW in 2021 to 629.8 billion KRW in 2022, and further to 1.2235 trillion KRW last year.
AlphaBIZ Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
