WEBTOON, a publishing portal and a subsidiary of NAVER, agreed to acquire Wattpad, a website and app for writers to publish new user-generated stories, for $600m in cash and stock. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close within the first half of this year. "Wattpad joining WEBTOON under the NAVER umbrella will be a big step towards us becoming a leading global multimedia entertainment company. Both Wattpad and WEBTOON care most about helping creators tell their story their way, and both represent world-leading collections of inspired, imaginative storytelling IP," Jun Koo Kim, WEBTOON Founder and CEO.