Krafton Stock Price Boosting All-Out Effort... Chairman Jang Byung-gyu and Subsidiaries Also Involved

Jang Byung-gyu, Chairman of Krafton

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Jang Byeong-gyu, the founder and chairman of Krafton, recently purchased 20 billion KRW worth of his company's shares over the past two weeks. Judging that Krafton's stock was undervalued, he launched a full-scale effort to boost the stock price as part of responsible management to enhance shareholder value, with employees of the independent development subsidiary '5min Lab' also joining in.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 1st, Chairman Jang bought 35,287 shares of Krafton over four trading days from the 22nd to the 25th. The total purchase amount for the shares bought through on-market transactions was approximately 10 billion KRW.

Chairman Jang had also purchased 10 billion KRW worth of Krafton shares on the 17th and 18th. Thus, over the past two weeks, he acquired shares worth 20 billion KRW.

Earlier, during the 2021 Q4 earnings conference call held last month, Chairman Jang stated, "I judged that Krafton's stock was undervalued, and I plan to purchase a certain portion of Krafton shares from today onward."

He said, "Even considering the recent impact of global macroeconomic trends on stocks, given the various initiatives and business expansions Krafton is preparing, I believe the recent stock price is undervalued in the mid to long term. I plan to purchase a certain portion of Krafton shares and will disclose this later."

He added, "More important than my share purchase is asking Krafton investors and members to trust the management in the mid to long term. I would like to take this opportunity to say that the management will do their best for growth."

Employees of 5min Lab also joined the effort to boost Krafton's stock price. Park Moon-hyung, CEO of 5min Lab, purchased 6,000 shares of Krafton at 288,750 KRW per share (total purchase amount of 1.7325 billion KRW), and the total purchase amount by all employees was about 3.3 billion KRW.

Krafton explained, "This stock acquisition was carried out voluntarily by the executives of 5min Lab. When Krafton acquired 5min Lab, the cash secured by 5min Lab's founders and internal shareholders was used as purchase funds."

Meanwhile, Krafton's stock price once rose to 580,000 KRW in November last year but halved in just three months, falling to around 250,000 KRW, which is 49.8% lower than the IPO price of 498,000 KRW. However, after Chairman Jang's share purchase, the stock rebounded and closed at 284,000 KRW on the 28th of last month.

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