Netmarble founder set to make rich list
Netmarble founding CEO Bang Jun-hyuk speaks about the firm’s business strategies during the third Netmarble Together with Press event at Glad Hotel on Yeouido, Seoul, in January. Bang is expected to become the nation’s sixth-richest man in May when the firm will be listed on the KOSPI bourse. / Courtesy of Netmarble
IPO to catapult high school dropout to one of wealthiest businessmen
By Lee Min-hyung
Netmarble founding CEO Bang Jun-hyuk is joining the ranks of the world’s most successful dropouts, following in the footsteps of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chul.
The 50-year-old entrepreneur, also a high school dropout, is enjoying his heyday with the game titan set to make a successful KOSPI debut this May.
This would allow him to become the nation’s third-richest magnet in the tech industry after Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee and his son and group heir Lee Jae-yong.
Netmarble submitted documents to the Korea Exchange last week for its planned initial public offering (IPO) with a target share price between 121,000 won ($108) and 157,000 won. This will let the firm mark up to 13.3 trillion won in market capitalization, the largest in the nation’s game industry.
After the IPO, Bang’s stake would be amount to 24.47 percent and that is valuable enough to make him the nation’s sixth-richest entrepreneur.
His life story comes with a striking difference compared to other tycoons here, as he did not pile up his wealth by inheriting family-owned businesses from his parents.
The country’s five richest people gained their wealth thanks to their fathers instead of initiating their own businesses ― they are Lee Kun-hee, AmorePacific Chairman Suh Kyung-bae, Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won.
Excluding the so-called chaebol tycoons, Bang would be Korea’s richest man in May. Plus, he has accomplished this outstanding success out of nothing.
“As an elementary student, I used to deliver newspaper to raise money to study,” he said in a company seminar held March last year.
“It does not matter what background you come from,” he said. “It is a pity that young people underestimate themselves and give up after making little effort. Everything depends on you.”
He said he decided to drop out of high school, as he thought it’s stupid to study just to get better test scores.
“When learning history, I wanted to study what our ancestors’ actual life and culture looked like, rather than simply memorizing the years when historical events took place,” he said.
Before founding the company in 2000, Bang established two internet-based firms ― an online movie theater, and a satellite internet content business ― which ended up falling apart.
But as the internet started to gain traction in Korea, his third company, Netmarble, brought massive success. He established the company with capital of only 100 million won and eight employees, identifying the infinite growth potential of online games.
Aside from the notable success, his life has been in the center of the spotlight, as he was often compared to Steve Jobs here in that both left their founding companies and made a successful comeback to revive them.
In 2006, Bang decided to step down from the management and leave the company due to his worsening health.
Largely because of the leadership vacuum, Netmarble started to lose upward momentum, facing a series of turmoil in the wake of continuous failures of the firm’s titles. Suffering from a five-year downturn, Bang decided to return in 2011 to stop the firm’s weakening profitability and revive its gloomy business outlook.
When he returned to the company, its last 19 titles had failed to attract attention and hardly generated any revenue. At that time, Netmarble posted billions of won in annual deficits.
But Bang viewed the firm’s future as “still promising,” as the gaming industry at the time was in a state of transition with the rise of smartphones.
His pioneering vision, to identify mobile games as a next growth area, has since paid off, with the company accomplishing outstanding growth, generating 1 trillion won in sales since 2015.
Successful dropouts
Bang and Jobs have one more thing in common ― both dropped out of school.
In fact, there are many dropouts who became famous businessmen on top of Bang and Jobs such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Japanese legendary entrepreneur and Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita.
Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul, father of Chairman Lee Kun-hee, would be the most dramatic case because he dropped out four times in his life ― three times in Korea and once in Japan.
He had neither a degree nor even a graduation certificate from an elementary school. It is touted as a mystery how he entered Waseda University, one of Japan’s most prestigious ivory towers, in 1929 without a high school graduation certificate.
He founded Samsung in 1937 and it is now one of the world’s largest companies with affiliates such as Samsung Electronics, the global leader in smartphones and memory chips.