Kakao to buy South Korea’s top music streaming operator for $1.6 billion

Category: Music

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By Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) – Chat app operator Kakao Corp on Monday unveiled a $1.6 billion (1.9 trillion won) deal to buy control of South Korea’s top music streaming service provider, tapping the market for Korean pop to diversify revenues and even expand offshore. The South Korean firm said it would buy a 76.4 percent stake in MelOn streaming service operator Loen Entertainment Inc for $1.6 billion. The deal, Kakao’s biggest since its 2014 all-stock merger with web search operator Daum, gives the mobile chat company access to the biggest streaming service user base in South Korea as well as a library of popular music content.