The Chinese Tencent technology giant explores a potential acquisition of Nexon, the South Korean game developer behind the successful title Dungeon and fighterBloomberg reports. Nexon is strongly invested in web games 3, including the ambitious MapleStory franchise.
The cabinet would have approached the Firers’ family, the founder of Nexon, Kim Jung-Ju, who controls a participation of 44.4% in Nexon via the NXC Corp portfolio company, to discuss a potential acquisition.
The discussions are always preliminary and nothing guarantees that they will lead to an agreement, indicates the report, citing sources close to the issue.
In the event of success, Tencent acquires a company with a market capitalization of $ 16.6 billion, a decision that could rekindle its ambitions in the mergers and global game acquisitions after a slowdown triggered by Chinese regulatory repression in 2020.
The agreement could help tence to obtain long -term control over popular intellectual property and give it a firmer foot on the lucrative market for South Korea Games.
But any agreement would be complicated.
The Kim family inherited the control after the death of the founder in 2022 and has since gave actions to the Korean government to cover taxes on inheritance. The government has not been able to unload its participation.
Tencent had previously tried to buy Nexon in 2019, but the talks collapsed on prices. This new attempt follows the investment of $ 1.3 billion in Tencent in a new Ubisoft unit and a 10% stake in the K-Pop SM Entertainment label.
The Chinese technology giant is also developing in the blockchain space, announcing earlier this year that it signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a series of API Blockchain services with Ankr.
Read more: giant game S. Korea Nexon to use polygon for the popular Maplety universe
