Netmarble Games (CEO Kwon Young-shik), which is considered as the biggest IPO (Initial Public Offering) gaming industry in South Korea, is going to offer shares for public subscription worth $1.80 billion (2 trillion KRW) in next month. Netmarble made an announcement on the 20th that it submitted registration statement to Financial Services Commission and is planning to be listed on KOSPI.
New stocks that will be offered by Netmarble are 16.95 million new stocks and they correspond to 20% of entire stocks. Estimated cost of this public offering will be between $108.71 and $141.05 (121,000 KRW and 157,000 KRW) and total amount of this public offering will be $1.84 billion (2.0513 trillion KRW) based on smallest amount. After being listed on KOSPI, market capitalization of Netmarble is estimated to exceed $8.98 billion (10 trillion KRW). Demand forecasting will be carried out by domestic and foreign institutional investors from the 11th and the 20th of April and subscription will take place on the 25th and 26th of April when offering price is determined.
Netmarble changed from CEO system to executive officer system at the end of last year in order to improve its corporate governance structure. This system has an executive that is in charge of execution of operation apart from board of directors and CEO Kwon Young-shik will be the first executive offer.
Netmarble was placed on the third place in global mobile game publisher last month due to popular games such as ‘Lineage 2 Revolution (Revolution)’, ‘Modoo Marble’, and ‘Seven Knights’. It made $896 million (1 trillion KRW) and $1.34 billion (1.50 trillion KRW) in 2015 and 2016 respectively and its foreign sales took up 51% of entire sales in 2016.
Nermarble is expected to have another positive performance this year due to positive responses from Revolution that was released at the end of last year. Within a month from release date, Netmarble made $185 million (206 billion KRW) from Revolution. Netmarble is being very active in M&A as it bought an American interactive entertainment company called Kabam’s Vancouver Studio this year.
Staff Reporter Lee, Hojoon | newlevel@etnews.com