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The
firm priced its initial public offering (IPO) at the top of an
indicative range as largely expected, analysts said, due to its
ability to consistently publish hit games in the highly
competitive mobile sector.
Most recently, role-playing mobile game "Lineage II:
Revolution", released in December, was named the world's biggest
earner in February by games data provider SuperData, despite
only being available in its home country.
South Korea is the fourth-largest games market after China, the
United States and Japan, with annual revenue of about $4
billion, showed June 2016 data from researcher Newzoo.
"The company not only has just released a mega-hit game the
likes of which has never been seen in South Korea, but it is
seen to have a strong lineup of games coming soon in the mobile
games sector, where it's often a while before a developer
releases another game," said analyst Jang Won-yeol at Shinyoung
Securities.
"The amount of shares offered was almost nonexistent compared to
demand," Jang said.
Netmarble said it sold 17 million shares - about 20 percent of
the firm - for 157,000 won each, the top of an indicative price
range whose bottom was 121,000 won. That earned the firm about
2.66 trillion won ($2.3 billion) and valued it at 13.3 trillion
won.
The size of the IPO surpassed the 2.25 trillion won listing of
Samsung BioLogics Co Ltd last year, and is second only to the
4.9 trillion won IPO of Samsung Life Insurance Co Ltd in 2010.
The firm, backed by China's Tencent Holdings Ltd, earlier this
week said it planned to use the proceeds, plus cash flow and
borrowings, to raise 5 trillion won for acquisitions.
Through acquisitions, Netmarble wants to expand its share of the
gaming market in North America and Europe to become a top-five
games company by 2020, its founder told Reuters in January.
The games industry has recently seen a series of high-profile
mergers and acquisitions as firms consolidate to gain market
share.
In June, a consortium including Shanghai Giant Network
Technology Co Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder Jack Ma
agreed to buy Caesars Interactive Entertainment Inc's online
games unit for $4.4 billion.
($1 = 1,133.8700 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Christopher
Cushing)
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