Mr. Joongil Cho is a partner at Shin & Kim’s Corporate/M&A Group. His main areas of practice include mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and corporate governance.

He has advised on major M&A transactions in the IT industry. He has also served as a senior legal counsel at Samsung Electronics, mainly providing advisory services on compliance. He worked at Gross, Kleinhendler, Hodak, Halevy, Greenberg & Co. (GKH) in Israel, where he advised on investments in start-ups.

After graduating from College of Law, Konkuk University, Mr. Cho acquired a master's degree (LL.M.) from Duke University School of Law in the United States and passed the Korean bar exam as the 36th class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute. Before joining Shin & Kim, Mr. Cho worked as a judge advocate, a senior attorney at Samsung Electronics, and as a foreign attorney at Gross, Kleinhendler, Hodak, Halevy, Greenberg & Co. (GKH) in the State of Israel. Since 2018, he has served as an advisor to Legal Counsel of the Creative Economy Innovation Center of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Korea, and since 2022, as a member of the Special Committee for the Legal Support to the Venture Companies and Start-ups of the Korean Bar Association.

Mr. Cho has been writing on various legal issues in the fields of merger, acquisition, and private investment and presenting as a presenter or on a panel at numerous seminars held in Korea and overseas. He is recognized as a Leading Individual in the fields of corporate/M&A from renowned global media such as Chambers Global, Chambers Asia-Pacific, and IFLR 1000.

M&A and Investment

• Investment in ECOPRO-innovation by financial investors (i.e. PremierPartners, etc.)
• Sale of WeMakePrice and new shares acquisition of Q10
• Kakao and Kakao Entertainment’s control interest transfer from SM entertainment
• Kakao Entertainment’s investment attraction from the Saudi Arabian National Fund PIF and Singaporean National Fund GIC
• Naver Financial Corporation’s acquisition of Naver real estate services, etc.
• 42dot’s sale to Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Corporation
• IMM Investment’s investment in Zigbang
• SK Discovery’s tender offer for the shares of SK Chemical
• SK Ecoplant’s acquisition of Singaporean electric and electronic wastes management company TES-AMM
• Kidari Studio and Lezhin Entertainment’s investment attraction from Bytedance
• 42dot’s Series investment attraction (in the largest scale of all series A investments)
• SK Plasma’s investment attraction
• BHC’s acquisition of Outback Stakehouse
• KRAFTON’s acquisition of interactive content producer Thingsflow
• Kakao Entertainment’s acquisition of Antenna
• VoyagerX’s investment attraction from Softbank Ventures, Altos Ventures and Yellowdog
• LG Chem’s new shares acquisition of cosmetic container manufacturer Innerbottle
• Naver Cloud’s acquisition of Works Mobile business
• Softbank Ventures’s investments in online platform Rapport Labs
• Softbank Ventures, IMM Investment, Bon Angels Venture Partners’ investment in AI-based safety technology R&D company Brookhurst Garage
• Advised Softbank Ventures on investment in Radish Media, etc.
• Mirae Asset Venture Investment’s investment in coworking space company Spark Plus
• Kakao Japan’s investment attraction
• IMM Investment’s investment in Musinsa
• Kakao Enterprise’s investment attraction from KDB
• Kakao Bank’s investment attraction from TPGs and Anchor Equity Partners
• Netmarble’s acquisition of animation production company Keyring
• Kakao M’s investment attraction of KRW 210 billion
• Advertising platform Bizville’s investment attraction
• IMM Investment’s new shares acquisition of WeMakePrice
• Tencent, IMM Investment, JKL Partners, Saehan Start-up Investment Consortium’s new shares acquisition of KRAFTON
• SK D&D’s sale of its stake in Hahn & Company
• Kakao’s acquisition of Loen and issuance of new shares
• Netmarble’s stock exchange with NCSOFT
• Netmarble’s acquisition of SGN Games in the United States
• Netmarble’s investment attraction from Tencent
• S-1’s acquisition of Building Management business
• Seagate’s acquisition of Samsung Electronics’ HDD business

Merger, Acquisition, JV Establishment, etc.

• Naver Cloud and Woongjin Thinkbig’s establishment of academic cloud platform joint venture Baecomm Co., Ltd.
• Kakao’s merger with Kakao Commerce
• SK Gas, Lotte Chemical, and Air Liquide Korea’s establishment of a hydrogen joint venture
• Kakao's establishment of New Melon Company, a spilt-off of Melon, and its merger with Kakao Entertainment
• GS Energy and Gntel’s operation of joint venture GS-Connect, an EV charging services provider
• Kakao Commerce’s merger of its Style business and a spin-off of Cherokee.com Co. Ltd.
• Kakao Page’s merger with KakaohM
• Solar Edge Technologies Korea’s all-inclusive shares exchange with Kokam
• Kakao’s division of the Commerce business
• SK Gas’s merger with G HUB
• Netmarble’s stock exchange with tis subsidiaries
• T-Broad’s merger of its subsidiaries (concurrent merger of 5 companies)
• Samsung General Chemicals’ merger with Samsung Petrochemicals
• Woori Financial Group’s division of local bank holding companies and their merger with Woori Bank
• SK Hynix’s stock exchange with SiliconFile Technologies
• HL Mando’s spin-off and conversion into Halla Holdings
• Chong Kun Dang’s split-off and conversion into Chong Kun Dang Holdings