{"id":128949,"date":"2026-08-23T03:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/128949\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T03:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:00:10","slug":"netmarble-chief-to-buy-w374b-tencent-stake-to-tighten-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/128949\/","title":{"rendered":"Netmarble chief to buy W374b Tencent stake to tighten control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>       <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260823.9c241abe16354d1ba94075f2ef5ec246_P1.jpg\" alt=\"Netmarble Chairman Bang Jun-hyuk (Netmarble)\"\/>     Netmarble Chairman Bang Jun-hyuk (Netmarble)  <\/p>\n<p>Netmarble Chairman Bang Jun-hyuk will spend 374 billion won ($270 million) to buy most of Tencent affiliate Han River Investment\u2019s stake in the Korean game developer, tightening his control while removing a potential share-sale pressure.<\/p>\n<p>According to Netmarble on Friday, the transaction was made as Han River Investment looked to sell a part of its 18.1 percent stake in Netmarble. Bang agreed to purchase 11.15 million shares, which are priced at 33,538 won each. The transaction is scheduled to close on Sept. 21.<\/p>\n<p>Netmarble said the agreed price reflects a block-trade discount to Netmarble\u2019s average share price over the month preceding negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>The deal will raise Bang\u2019s stake in Netmarble from 24.93 percent to 38.34 percent, while Han River Investment\u2019s holding will fall to 4.69 percent. The gap between the two largest shareholders will consequently widen from 6.82 percentage points to 33.65 percentage points.<\/p>\n<p>Industry watchers say that the Netmarble chief\u2019s decision is aimed at removing a large potential source of selling pressure as the dumping of Tencent-related shares could have rattled Netmarble&#8217;s stock price.<\/p>\n<p>According to Netmarble\u2019s regulatory filing, the purpose of the acquisition was described as \u201cstrengthening responsible management\u201d while Han River Investment cited the recovery of investment funds as the reason for the sale.<\/p>\n<p>As the transaction is a shareholder-to-shareholder deal, Netmarble itself will not receive proceeds from the sale. Bang is expected to finance the acquisition through a stock-backed loan, with details of the collateral and other terms to be disclosed later.<\/p>\n<p>Netmarble said the change in ownership will not affect Netmarble\u2019s business relationship with Tencent, which dates back to 2014 when Tencent invested 530 billion won in Netmarble\u2019s predecessor CJ Games, and the two companies will continue cooperating in the global gaming business and other sectors.<\/p>\n<p>hwkan@heraldcorp.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netmarble Chairman Bang Jun-hyuk (Netmarble) Netmarble Chairman Bang Jun-hyuk will spend 374 billion won ($270 million) to buy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,21451],"class_list":["post-128949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-korea","tag-netmarble"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}