NHN plans to drastically cut its share in game developing subsidiaries.
Neople is an online game provider and a subsidiary of NHN. NHN reduced its share in Neople from 60% to 40%, handing over the management right to Neople. And NHN also started to cut its shares in NHN Games and NPluto, other subsidiaries for game development.
"When we acquired Neople, we never touched its management right. We'll guarantee the autonomy of subsidiaries where we invest. That is good for not only developers but also NHN's strategy," said one official from NHN.
NHN reaped massive profits in investment after reducing Neople's shares from 60% to 40.85%. Neople paid 23.1 billion won (US$24.6 million) to buy 19.15% of its share from NHN, which means Neople is worth of 120 billion won (US$128 million). But NHN spent 24 billion won (US$25.6 million) to secure 60% of Neople's shares in April 2006. And NHN earned 200% profit in just 16 months.
NHN also sells its share in NHN Games, established in 2004. NHN had 100% shares in 2005, 65% in the end of 2006 and 50% recently. NHN is also said to cut its shares in NPluto to less than 50%. NHN invested 10 billion won (US$10.7 million) in NPluto last July and had 51% shares. Therefore, Moon Tae-sik, the former head of NHN Games and the 2nd largest shareholder of NPluto, could have more shares than NHN.
