- Synergy doubled by the merging and integrated operation of Naver’s affiliate Line and Yahoo Japan
- Naver founder GIO Lee Hae-jin confirmed as the CEO of this joint venture

The first thing that comes to mind when you see Pangyo is IT. InPangyo, various IT companies like Naver, Kakao, NCSOFT, Nexon, and Neowiz Gamesare located. Naver is the third-largest company in market capitalization and isalso an IT company that represents Pangyo. Recently, the Japan Fair TradeCommission approved the management integration of Naver's subsidiary Line and ZHoldings Corp, a subsidiary of Softbank and a Yahoo Japan operator. The name ofthe joint venture between Naver and Softbank is A Holdings. The generalshareholders meeting related to approval of the division of the line for themerger between the two companies will be held in February of next year, andwill be officially launched in March.

The integration of Line and Yahoo Japan is the combination ofJapan's largest messenger company and search portal. Line, which has about 82million users, is known as the national messenger in Japan. Yahoo Japan isJapan's second-largest search engine service provider with about 50 millionusers. When the two companies are integrated, the largest digital platform inAsia used by 130 million people will be created.

Instead of the painful competition in the new business area, itwill maximize the synergy effect through sharing based on portal and messengerservices. In particular, cooperation will be made in the AI field, which bothNaver and Softbank are fostering as a new growth engine. There is expected tobe joint R&D (R&D) and collaboration to implement AI technology as areal service. In addition, the two companies are expected to cooperate in avariety of key business areas such as pay, finance, and search.

Lee Hae-jin, Naver's Global Investment Officer (GIO), will bethe CEO and chairman of A Holdings, which Naver and Softbank each have a 50%stake. Lee, who is also the founder of Naver, is one of the main characters whotransformed Line that was merely a new company after the 2011 earthquake inJapan into the largest messenger in Japan. A Holdings will have five directors,of which four have been nominated and one is to be announced. The nominees areGIO Lee Hae-jin from Naver, CFO Hwang In-joon from Line, and CEO Ken Miyauchiand CFO Kazuhiko Fujihara from Softbank. GIO Lee is the CEO and chairman and CEO Miyauchi of Softbank is the CEOand president.

NAVER, the company that represents Pangyo, is a Korean companythat was divided from its parent company, NHN. It is operating the portal siteNaver, and it ranks 34th in the business world as of June 2020. Naver played apart in raising the reputation of Pangyo Techno Valley as Korea's SiliconValley by completing the construction and moving into the Green Factory inJeongja-dong, Bundang-gu, the headquarters building in 2010. Naver has openedsome of its office building space to the general public. You can browse booksin the Naver's library and buy green window-shaped magnets at the Naver Store.All of the income from sales is donated through Happy Bean.