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Biz News Korea(Eng)

Netmarble chooses Kospi over Nasdaq to go public

Collected: 2016.08.04

Distributed: 2016.08.05

Source: Go Direct

South Korea’s leading mobile game developer Netmarble Games Corp. has begun the process to go public on the country’s main stock bourse Kospi at the year-end or early next year.

It had weighed the main Korean bourse and technology-laden U.S. Nasdaq, but decided that its corporate value would be better appreciated on home turf, said an unnamed official at the company with the knowledge of the matter.

It chose NH Investment & Securities Co. and JP Morgan as underwriters to lead the initial public offering which could be up to 2 trillion won ($1.79 billion). The company’s worth could reach 10 trillion won after its listing.

The Korean game company racked up 225.3 billion won in operating income on sales of 1 trillion won last year. Its founder and senior advisor Bang Jun-hyuk is the biggest shareholder with a 32.36 percent stake, followed by CJ E&M Corp. with a 31.40 percent stake, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s subsidiary Han River Investment PTE with a 25.26 percent stake and NC Soft with a 9.8 percent stake.

Once it successfully debuts on the Korean stock market, it will use the proceeds for acquisitions of overseas game makers. It recently lost to a Chinese consortium in a race to take over Israel-based social network game company Playtika.

By Lee Gyung-jin

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