With rumors that Doosan Group’s prized baseball team Doosan Bears could be included in the asset sale package for restructuring, speculations have been flying high that Kakao emerging as one of the most valuable companies in Korea amid fast digitalization may be a candidate to become the new owner.

As Doosan Group is set to sell of a number of assets including its headquarters building Doosan Tower and battery copper foil maker Doosan Solus as well as a golf resort to salvage its core power plant equipment manufacture Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.

Fans of all-time champion from Seoul are closely watching if the team Bears also is put up for sale.

Despite its denial, Kakao’s name has come up.

Operating a baseball team is not for profit-making but for enhancing a company’s reputation, so the largest shareholder’s willingness to own a team and strong financial soundness matters most for a company to have a baseball team. Most of the owners of the nation’s 10 baseball teams including NCSoft Chairman Kim Taek-jin owning NC Dinos are known as avid baseball fans.

Unfortunately, the founder of the country’s most used messaging platform, Kim Beom-soo, is not.

The rumors of Kakao mulling taking over the baseball team have been fueled by Kakao’s recent sponsorship deal with DragonX (DRX), a team of pro-gamers competing in international e-sports tournaments of League of Legends. It was the first time for the tech firm to sponsor an e-sports team.

By Pulse

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