Forbes taps MBK and Nexon founders as Asia's philanthropy heroes

Michael ByungJu Kim, the founder of South Korean investment firm MBK Partners, and Kim Jung-ju, founder of Nexon, the largest online gaming company in Korea, have been selected as Asia’s Heroes of Philanthropy by Forbes this year. The two were among 15 philanthropists chosen by the American magazine for the honor in the Asia Pacific. 
 
For its 15th roundup of Asia’s top philanthropists announced on Dec. 14, the list focuses on individual philanthropists in the Asia Pacific region who donate significant amounts of their personal fortunes, Forbes said. The people on the list have the vision to support solutions that look to make the world a better place, it added.
 
Forbes focused on Michael Kim’s support for education. He has pledged to donate 30 billion won ($25.4 million) to the Seoul government for a new public library in the Korean capital. The five-story, 9,000-square-meter library, will begin construction in 2023 and open in 2025. The library will be named the Seoul Public Kim ByungJu Library. 

In 2010, he donated $7.5 million to establish a new dorm at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where he has graduated from. In 2018, Kim donated $7 million to endow an associate professorship at Harvard Business School, another alma mater. 

Kim founded MBK Partners in 2005 after leading the Asia arm of The Carlyle Group. Two years later, he launched the nonprofit MBK Scholarship Foundation to award education grants on the basis of financial need. A total of 155 Korean scholars to date have received full tuition from the foundation. “I have been putting efforts into impact giving, focusing on education, culture and the arts. Education is the engine for changing the world,” Kim said. 

MBK is the largest independent private equity firm in Asia, with 27 trillion won ($22.8 billion) in assets under management. Focusing on the North Asian region, it is specialized in buyout and special situation funds.

The other Korean honored on the Forbes list, Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju has donated a total of 6.3 billion won ($5.3 million) to two children's hospitals: Daejeon Chung-nam Public Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital since 2019 and Nexon Children’s Palliative Care Center at Seoul National University Hospital, which is set to open in 2022. He also plans to donate an additional 2.5 billion won to the palliative care center and 1.3 billion won to the Daejeon children's hospital next year.

“Since its foundation, Nexon has been able to grow thanks to the great love and interest it has received from children and teenagers. For the past 10 years, I have been looking for ways to help in the rehabilitation and treatment of children with disabilities in Korea," he said. Nexon's most successful game titles include MapleStory and KartRider, both popular among teenagers.

From 2013 to 2015, the Korean gaming company donated 20 billion won ($16.9 million) to help build the Purme Foundation Nexon Children's Rehabilitation Hospital in Seoul, which the company says is the first rehabilitation hospital for children in Korea. The 10-story, 18,580-square-meter hospital opened in 2016. 

The other 13 philanthropists honored in the Asia Pacific include Vietnam’s VinGroup founder Pham Nhat Vuong, Hong Kong’s Hang Lung Group chairman Ronnie Chan and his brother Gerald Chan, Alibaba Group co-founder Joseph Tsai and his wife Clara Wu Tsai and Japanese manufacturing tycoon Takemitsu Takizaki.


Write to Jun-Ho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.