Nexon Sells NCSoft Shares - Giving up on their Hostile Takeover

October 16, 2015 Omer Altay Comments

Nexon finally gave up on their attempts to take over NCSoft, ending a saga of corporate drama that began back in 2012. Nexon announced today that they would sell their entire ~15% stake in NCSoft on the open market in South Korea and no longer peruse a deal.

Back in 2012, Nexon purchased about 15% of NCSoft's outstanding shares, with the purpose of eventually acquiring the entire company. This acquisition would be huge in gaming circles, as Nexon is the biggest South Korean game company and NCSoft is the second biggest. NCSoft didn't want to be bought out by Nexon, so in order to thwart their efforts, they ended up making a $345 million investment in Netmarble through a stock-swap (meaning NCSoft paid for their shares in Netmarble with NCSoft shares). This meant that Netmarble owned a big chunk of NCSoft shares and could vote with NCSoft's founder Kim Taek-jin (who owns ~10% of his company) against the Nexon acquisition. It's often difficult to buy out another company if they refuse to cooperate and in this case, it's clear that NCSoft didn't want to be bought out by Nexon despite the fact that NCsoft shareholders probably would have made a lot of money in the process.