Self-made Korean billionaires pledge to give half their fortunes away

SEOUL: Two self-made South Korean billionaires have pledged in as many weeks to give away half their fortunes — a rarity in a country where business is dominated by family-controlled conglomerates and charity often begins and ends at home.

Kim Beom-su, the founder of the country’s biggest messaging app KakaoTalk, announced this month he will donate more than half his estimated US$9.6 billion assets to “solve social issues”.

Shortly afterwards, Kim Bongjin of food-delivery app Woowa Brothers and his wife, Bomi Sul, became the first South Koreans to sign the Giving Pledge.

The philanthropic initiative was set up by Bill and Melinda Gates, alongside Warren Buffett, for billionaires to give away at least half their wealth.

Both Kims contrast with most of South Korea’s ultra-wealthy, who are largely descendants of the founders of the chaebol, the sprawling, usually family-run conglomerates.

Unlike the chaebol heirs who inherited their wealth, power and connections, the two Kims were born to working-class families.

In his Giving Pledge statement, Kim of Woowa Brothers described his “humble beginning” on a small island.

His parents ran a small restaurant, where he slept at night, and as a teenager he gave up his dream of attending an art high school, enrolling instead in a cheaper vocational school.

Wealth, he said, had value when it was used for “the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society”.

Rather than keeping the entirety of their fortune, Kim and his wife said: “We are certain that this pledge is the greatest inheritance that we could provide for our children.”

Neither of the billionaire Kims has so far provided a precise timeline for their pledged donations, or detailed the recipient organisations.