KakaoPay Stock Plummets Due to 'Alipay Block Deal'... Clarification on "Maintaining Cooperation"

[Asia Economy Reporter Sim Nayoung] As it became known that Alipay Singapore Holdings, an Ant Group affiliate and the second largest shareholder of Kakao Pay, sold 5 million shares through a block deal (large volume trading outside regular hours), Kakao Pay's stock price plummeted, prompting the company to take action to calm the situation.

Kakao Pay explained, "The shares sold this time represent 9.80% of the shares held by Alipay Singapore Holdings, which corresponds to 3.77% of the total issued shares of Kakao Pay."

They added, "The long-term partnership between Kakao Pay and Ant Group continues to strengthen," and "Kakao Pay and Ant Group have been expanding global cross-border payments both online and offline since 2018."

Furthermore, "We plan to extend cooperation to more countries beyond Japan and Macau, where overseas payment services are currently provided, and we expect to launch services in new countries within this month," they said.

As of the end of March, Alipay held 51,015,205 shares (38.52%) of Kakao Pay. As of 2 p.m. on the same day, Kakao Pay was trading at 89,400 KRW on the Korea Exchange, down 15.66% from the previous trading day. Shortly after the market opened, the stock price plunged as much as 19% to 85,800 KRW.

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