[Special Stock] Solbon, YouTube Craze-Driven Kinemaster... High Valuation with Management Control Premium

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Solbon's stock is showing strength amid growing expectations for a successful sale of KineMaster.

At 9:35 a.m. on the 26th, Solbon was trading at 8,650 KRW, up 7.72% from the previous day.

KineMaster's stock price has risen more than 160% this month alone.

According to the investment banking (IB) industry, Nomura Financial Investment, the sale advisor for KineMaster, plans to distribute an IM (information memorandum) soon. It is known to be attracting interest from global companies such as TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

KineMaster operates its self-developed video editing app, "KineMaster." Since its launch in December 2013, KineMaster currently has 70 million monthly active users (MAU) and 7.2 million daily active users (DAU). KineMaster is the second-largest player in the video editing app market, holding an 18% global market share. The largest user bases are in the United States and India. Solbon holds approximately 2.41 million shares of KineMaster stock. Based on the current KineMaster stock price, this amounts to about 150 billion KRW. Related parties such as Solbon Investment and Focus Newspaper also hold a significant number of shares. Considering management premiums and other factors, the sale profit could be even greater.

In 2020, KineMaster ranked fifth worldwide in downloads among mobile video editing apps. It was selected following Naver, Samsung, Mobirix, and Netmarble. As a result, KineMaster stood out as the fifth most downloaded domestic publisher globally in 2020.

As anyone can shoot videos with smartphones, interest in video editing apps has increased. Recently, the Korean startup Hyperconnect was sold to a U.S. company for 1.9 trillion KRW, causing KineMaster's valuation to soar. The market even mentions prices around the 1 trillion KRW level.

Last year, KineMaster recorded sales of 29.8 billion KRW, operating profit of 4.2 billion KRW, and net profit of 2.5 billion KRW. Sales increased by 53% compared to the previous year, while operating profit and net profit rose by 1206% and 3900%, respectively.

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