Meet Kim Jung-Youn: The World's Youngest Billionaire
Kim Jung-youn is the daughter of Nexon’s founder Kim Jung Ju. The gaming heiress was officially crowned as the youngest billionaire in the world this year after her father who's one of the richest person in Korea left behind stakes in the gaming company. She would have received much higher amount, however South Korea has a high inheritance tax so Jung-youn lost almost half a billion due to payment of tax.
Not much detail was made available to the public other than the fact that she was born in 2004. This made her the youngest billionaire in the world, a title previously held by the 20 year old Kevin David Lehman with his $1.8 billion from his father Guenther Lehman’s drugstore chain, Drogerie Markt.
Nexon Group was founded by Kim Jung Ju and Jake Song on December 26, 1994. Although they were established in Seoul, South Korea, the main office is currently based in Japan. They have multiple offices across the world including South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. The first game that the company developed and published was Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds that was launched in 1996.
After the first game, many games were released soon after including KartRider, Elancia, Dark Ages: Online Roleplaying, Elemental Saga, QuizQuiz, and Shattered Galaxy. These games are currently maintained by a company Kru Interactive formerly known as Nexon Inc. Nexon Inc. is the US subsidiary of the Nexon company.
Wizet, a subsidiary of the Nexon Corporation, developed the MapleStory in Korea. The franchise later became the company’s most successful titles ever and has been serviced for more than ten years now. The game was even localized in different countries such as Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, China, North America, Vietnam, Brazil and Europe. Nexon is also the developer behind the game Dungeon & Fighter through the company’s subsidiary Neople. It is one of the most popular online free-to-play computer games in China.
After almost ten years of being a private company, Nexon decided to go public on December 14, 2011 in the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The initial public offering of the company became the largest one in Japan for the year and was the 2nd largest overall worldwide for technological company.
Since then, the company started acquiring different game developers including Maryland based mobile game developer Big Huge Games in 2016. The kept acquiring and investing to different investment opportunities. By 2021, the company had already invested about $874 million into Bandai Namco Holdings, Konami, Hasbro, and Sega Sammy Holdings.
Kim Jung Ju is the father of Kim Jung-Youn who left behind an enormous amount of wealth to the young lady. Other than his holdings on the company Nexon, he was also a partner at the New York-based venture capital firm called Collaborative Fund.
Kim Jung Ju was the key behind Korea’s first-generation tech wave after the launch of Nexon in 1994. He was included in the Forbes billionaire ranking in 2013 as the 11th richest person in South Korea with $1.6 billion. At the time of his death, he was third wealthiest person in South Korea with $10.7 billion.
Kim Jung Ju was married to Yoo Jung-Hyun and they had two daughters namely Kim Jung-youn and her older sister Kim Jung-min. Jung Ju succumbed to death in February 28, 2022 at the age 54. He left behind massive amount of wealth to his family.
Kim Jung-youn and her sister inherited stakes of their father’s company Nexon, which is about 30.78 per cent of the company. Both sisters received the same amount of shares upon the death of their father. Both of them already have shares prior to their father's death but their net worth skyrocketed when Jung Ju died.
Although they are holding almost half of the company, it was revealed that their father do not want them to run the company. Kim Jung Ju stated before he died that his daughters will never take over the company if he ever died. The company will be passed down to the hands of seasoned employees to maintain the company’s culture of fairness and transparency.
After the death of her father, Kim Jung-youn instantly became the youngest billionaire when she and her sister were given $2.5 billion. It was reported that each of Kim Jung Ju’s daughter received about $1 billion each after taxes.
Kim Jung-youn’s mother is already a billionaire even before the passing of Kim Jung Ju since she owns 4.57% of stake in the company. Since Yoo Jung-hyun helped Kim Jung Ju build the company from ground up, she was greatly compensated for her investments of money and time.
Aside from Kim Jung-youn’s inheritance from Jung Ju, her mother also got the same stakes as their daughters making her the largest stockholder of the company with 34% of ownership. She is currently serving the company as their auditor.
Sources: Next Shark, Economic Times India, Forbes
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