By Yoon Sung-won
Nexon, the nation’s largest online game company, said Tuesday it will participate in management of NCSOFT based on its stake in the company, reversing its previous decision not to do so.
As the consequence, Nexon will have further room to control the nation’s second-largest game firm.
Nexon, founded by its chairman Kim Jung-ju, announced it has changed the purpose of owning its 15.08 percent share of NCSOFT to management participation from what it previously said was a simple investment. Nexon is the largest shareholder of NCSOFT, followed by NCSOFT CEO Kim Taek-jin’s 9.9 percent and the National Pension Service’s 7.8 percent.
“Nexon has acquired NCSOFT’s stake owned by its CEO Kim Taek-jin in July 2012 to cooperate for enhancing competitiveness in the global market by tapping into the two’s respective strengths,” Nexon said in a statement.
“Nexon made efforts such as co-development projects with NCSOFT over the last two and a half years. But the existing cooperation structure failed to leave meaningful results due to its limitation in quickly responding to the rapid changes in the IT industry.”
The company, which has its headquarters in Japan, also said it will change its role as an “active investor” to raise the corporate values of the two companies. “We will open all options and continue talking with NCSOFT,” Nexon added.
NCSOFT, on the contrary, expressed regret over Nexon’s decision.
“This is Nexon Japan backing down on its own promise and breaking its trust on the entire market,” the company said in a statement.
“NCSOFT and Nexon Japan have different philosophies in game development and business model and it is likely that Nexon Japan’s unilateral attempt to participate in our management will end up weakening our competitiveness, not creating synergy between the two.
“This will seriously hamper NCSOFT’s shareholder value and ultimately weaken the competitiveness of the nation’s game industry.”