KRAFTON announced on the 24th that it will begin a global partnership through a strategic investment in Japan's ADK Group. The two companies plan to jointly promote the expansion of their core business areas in response to the growing global animation industry.
On the 24th of this month, KRAFTON's board of directors approved the acquisition of BCJ-31, a subsidiary of Bain Capital Japan. The acquisition amount is 75 billion yen (approximately 710.3 billion won). BCJ-31 is the parent company of ADK Holdings, which owns major subsidiaries under the ADK Group. Through this transaction, the ADK Group (hereinafter ADK) will become a consolidated subsidiary of KRAFTON.
ADK is one of Japan's three major advertising companies, accumulating expertise in content planning, production, advertising, and marketing, including experience in participating in over 300 animation production committees. The annual transaction volume is expected to reach approximately 348 billion yen (around 3.3 trillion won) as of 2024.
KRAFTON is seeking new synergy opportunities for the expansion of its game-centric intellectual property (IP) through connection with the rapidly growing global animation market. This acquisition is part of a long-term strategy to enhance collaboration possibilities between animation and games and to strengthen the content and media business foundation in Japan.
In particular, by combining ADK's animation planning and production capabilities with KRAFTON's global game development and service experience, the two companies aim to create new added value that has not been attempted before while maintaining their identities. They also plan to examine long-term expansion opportunities across the Japanese content industry by linking KRAFTON's gaming capabilities with ADK's advertising and media infrastructure accumulated over about 70 years.
KRAFTON CEO Kim Chang-han noted, 'ADK is a partner with high expertise and execution capabilities in animation planning and production, advertising, marketing, and media operations based on a deep understanding of the overall Japanese content industry.' He added, 'Through collaboration with ADK, KRAFTON aims to continuously discover various connections between games and animation and organically combine the strengths of both companies to create new opportunities in the global content business.'