another news about the merger

Actor Bae Yong-joon to get Osaka-listed firm's shares

Korean actor Bae Yong-joon is set to gain a significant stake in a Japanese company listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange. Bae is an actor-businessman said to have one of the largest securities assets among local celebrities. He also has a significant fan base in Japan, where is he referred to as Yon-sama.

According to industry sources, BOF International has agreed to be merged into the Osaka Exchange-listed Japanese firm Digital Adventure Inc.

BOF International is a Japanese subsidiary of Korea's Keyeast Co., a celebrity management and visual contents maker whose largest shareholder is Bae, who owns 34.64 percent of the company. Digital Adventure is a Tokyo-based digital contents distributor founded in 1971 with total assets of 3.786 billion yen ($40.9 million). For the last fiscal year, the company generated revenues of 4.17 billion yen, operating profits of 343 million yen and a net profit of 324 million yen.

As part of the deal, Bae and Keyeast, who holds all of the 129,850 shares of BOF International will receive equivalent shares of Digital Adventure. Although the details of the deal have not yet been finalized, Keyeast officials said that the deal is likely to see the company gain a significant number of Digital Adventure's stocks.

In addition to Digital Adventure's shares, Keyeast is hoping to gain access to the Japanese company's sales network to further its Japanese operations, which consists of distributing Bae memorabilia. The merger will also allow tasks BOF International had been contracting out, such as operating the website, organizing events and producing souvenirs bearing images of Bae, to be carried out solely by Digital Adventure.

By Choi He-suk

(cheesuk@heraldm.com)
korea herald 2008.12.08