Creatrip's 2024 Investor MyRealTrip Is Buying All of It Through a Share Swap

Two Numbers Missing From the Board Announcement

MyRealTrip, a Korean online travel platform, said its board voted on September 11 to acquire Creatrip. It is buying all of Creatrip’s shares through a share exchange and plans to make Creatrip a subsidiary by the end of the year, once the remaining procedures are complete.

Two numbers were left out: the purchase price and the exchange ratio. How many MyRealTrip shares Creatrip shareholders will receive, and what each company was valued at, is not yet known. Both services will keep running separately while the acquisition proceeds.

The two companies first connected in 2024, when MyRealTrip made a strategic investment in Creatrip. By securing all of the shares now, MyRealTrip turns that partnership into a parent and subsidiary structure.

The Legal Hurdles in a Korean Share Exchange

A share exchange is a route set out in Korea’s Commercial Act for making another company a wholly owned subsidiary. Under Article 360-2, on the exchange date the shares held by shareholders of the company becoming the subsidiary pass to the company becoming the parent. Those shareholders receive newly issued shares or treasury shares of the parent and become its shareholders. Applied to this deal, Creatrip’s shareholders become MyRealTrip shareholders.

Article 360-3 provides the backbone of the process. A company carrying out a share exchange must draw up an exchange agreement and obtain shareholder approval. That approval is a special resolution requiring at least two-thirds of the voting rights present and at least one-third of all issued shares. The agreement must state the total number and class of shares to be issued or transferred and how they will be allocated to the subsidiary’s shareholders. If some or all of the consideration is paid in cash or other property, that too must be written into the agreement.

Each side has one way to replace the shareholder vote with a board vote. For the parent, it is the small-scale share exchange under Article 360-10. If the new shares and treasury shares it hands over do not exceed 10% of its issued shares, board approval can stand in for the shareholders’ meeting. The route is closed if the cash or property given to the subsidiary’s shareholders exceeds 5% of the parent’s net assets, or if holders of 20% or more of the parent’s shares object in writing within two weeks of the notice.

For the subsidiary, it is the simplified share exchange under Article 360-9, available when all shareholders consent or when the parent-to-be already owns at least 90% of the issued shares. Where a shareholders’ meeting is held, a dissenting shareholder who gives written notice before the meeting can demand, within 20 days of the resolution, that the company buy their shares (Article 360-5). Which route MyRealTrip and Creatrip will take has not been disclosed.

An Outbound Travel Company Adds Inbound

MyRealTrip was founded in 2012 and sells flights, accommodation, tours and activities. It has passed 10 million cumulative members and, according to the company, recorded about 2.3 trillion won in gross transaction value in 2025. Until now its business has centered on Koreans traveling abroad and on domestic trips.

Creatrip was founded in 2016. It introduces travel content and activities to foreigners visiting Korea and, through partnerships with local businesses, takes them all the way to a booking. The company says it had 1.7 million monthly users as of April 2026.

The market backdrop is worth a look. Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on July 28 that foreign visitors in the first half of the year topped 10.71 million. MyRealTrip’s CEO explained the deal by saying that what travelers need is not very different whether they are going abroad, traveling at home or coming to Korea.

Creatrip Says the Brand Stays

Creatrip’s side of the announcement shows what stays and what is still undecided. Its CEO called the acquisition a strategic choice to grow further on the inbound expertise the company has built over ten years, and said Creatrip would strengthen its own brand identity and service competitiveness. The announcement did not say whether the app will keep running separately after the merger, or how bookable products and partner businesses will be combined.

For early-stage startups taking strategic money, the part of this story worth studying is the first investment agreement. When an investor later shows up as the buyer, clauses written in at the start, such as information rights or a right of first refusal, come back to the table in the acquisition talks. The terms of MyRealTrip’s 2024 investment were not disclosed, so what role any such clauses played here is unknown.

The exchange ratio and the allocation method are items a share exchange agreement must contain. Whether the two companies will make those numbers public was not addressed in the announcement.